





















































BIANCA’S 

DAUGHTER 


A NOVEL 


KS 

BY 

JUSTUS MILES FORMAN 

AUTHOR OF 
“ BUCHANAN’S WIFE ” 

“JASON” ETC. 



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HARPER & BROTHERS 


NEW YORK AND LONDON 
M C M X 



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Copyright, 1910, by Harper & Brothers. 
All rights reserved. 


Published April, 1910. 

Printed in the United States of America. 


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C DNTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE 

I. The Girl Who Wanted to Live ... i 

II. Blake Pere Loses a Hand to Fate . . 19 

III. Appears Donna Bianca 30 

IV. “‘He Cometh Not/ She Said” .... 43 

V. Richard Blake’s Eyes Are Opened . . 59 

VI. Introducing Messrs. Temple and Fleming 72 

VII. Mr. Temple Becomes Young Again . . 84 

VIII. The Driven Ship 98 

IX. A Few Quiet Days no 

X. “For Those in Peril on the Sea” . . 116 

XI. The Port in the Storm 129 

XII. Donna Bianca 142 

XIII. In the Walled Garden 152 

XIV. A Mystery Explained — Vittoria Makes 

a Promise 170 

XV. When Love Calls, Answer and Go . . 188 

XVI. Two Letters 208 

XVII. Mr. Temple Is Tried in the Fire — . 220 

XVIII. And Proves Good Metal — Old Friends 

Quarrel 232 

XIX. Le Philosophe 250 

XX. Night in the Walled Garden — Love 

Spreads His Sails 258 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE 

XXL The Man Who Lived in Hell .... 278 

XXII. The Foundations are Shaken — . . . 285 

XXIII. But They Do Not Fall 298 

XXIV. Outside the Study Door 303 

XXV. The Irresistible Force Meets with the 

Immovable Object 316 

XXVI. All’s Well at Last 331 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


i 

THE GIRL WHO WANTED TO LIVE 

T HE two Blakes, father and son, shared — as they 
shared most of their likes and dislikes — a pro- 
found distaste for balls, and never went to them when 
the obligation could possibly be avoided. In con- 
sequence it happened that an hour after their arrival 
at Mrs. Cartwright’s dance — that is to say, somewhat 
after one o’clock — they met in a doorway of the 
ball-room, and each, encountering the hunted, fur- 
tive look in the other’s eyes, began to laugh. 

“I take it from your air of distress,” said Creighton 
Blake, “that you have borne all you can bear. So 
have I. I’m in full retreat. Shall we go together ?” 

The younger man turned an apprehensive eye 
behind him. 

“Nothing would please me more,” he said, “but 
I have a dim recollection that I asked somebody for 
this next dance. I can’t think who it is, but I believe 
it is a young person Catharine Dudley has under her 

i 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


wing. It was Mrs. Dudley who presented me, I 
know.” 

The two stood for a moment in the shelter of the 
doorway looking out over the heads of the people who 
were chattering together in gay little groups or who 
passed by in couples and nodded to them over their 
shoulders. Then the younger Blake said, suddenly: 

“Ah, there she is, that girl of Mrs. Dudley’s! She’s 
standing over there with the Tommy Carterets and 
Beatrix Faring. Do you see ?” He pointed a finger. 
“She’s a rather splendid young person, isn’t she? 
I think I must claim my dance. By Jove, she is 
rather splendid! Do you know who it is she looks 
like ? She looks like Lina Strozzi as Strozzi must 
have been some years ago. I wonder what her 
name is ?” 

His father did not answer immediately, and young 
Blake looked up at him to see if his attention had 
been diverted ; but the elder man was staring straight 
at the young woman who resembled Lina Strozzi, 
and the sight must have been a severe shock of some 
nature, for his face bore a very odd expression — a fixed 
look such as his son had seen there but once or twice 
before in all his life, and that had been in brood- 
ing moments when the man had thought himself 
alone. 

Young Blake thought that his father must be ill — 
he knew that the elder man’s heart was none too good 
— and touched him gently on the arm, moving a step 
nearer in case of need ; but after a moment the other 


2 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


turned his still face, and there was no sign of illness 
there, nor of any expression whatever. 

“The name?” he asked. “I think the young 
lady’s name is — Fleming. Yes, Fleming. Mrs. 
Dudley will be some sort of elder cousin to her, I 
believe. Probably she has been bringing her out.” 
He looked back across the brilliant room to where 
the slim, dark-haired girl stood talking with her 
friends — a number of young men had added them- 
selves to the group now — and after a moment gave 
a little tired sigh and turned away. 

“I won’t wait,” he said. “I’m hideously bored. 
You’ll be half an hour longer at least. You might 
stop in at my rooms when you come home. I sha’n’t 
have gone to bed.” He nodded and went off, and his 
son stood in the doorway for a little time frowning 
after him. He knew his father’s moods and manners 
as very few sons do, for the two were uncommonly 
friendly, and, during the past ten years — since the 
younger man had left his university, in other words 
— had been a great deal together, sometimes under 
dangerous and trying conditions in remote parts of 
the world. In consequence of this he knew that the 
elder man had, in some sudden and mysterious 
fashion, suffered a twinge of severe physical pain or 
had been greatly disturbed by something from with- 
out. Men do not suddenly turn pale and haggard 
in a ball-room for nothing. 

Of course, he thought at once of Mrs. Dudley’s 
young protegee. They had been speaking of her 
• 3 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and watching her when Creighton Blake had been 
so disturbed, but she was very evidently a young girl 
in her first season. There could have been nothing 
about her to make a man of five-and-fifty turn white. 
What else, then ? 

But suddenly young Blake gave an exclamation 
and burst out laughing, for he remembered the lady 
whom he had said this girl so remarkably resembled, 
and he knew that there were many men who might 
conceivably suffer a change of countenance at the 
mention of the lady’s name. The probability that 
he had 'stumbled unawares upon a hitherto con- 
cealed romance of his father’s amused him very 
much, and he was still laughing gently when he went 
across the ball-room to where the innocent cause of 
so much mystification stood surrounded by her 
friends. 

He made his way among them, and reminded the 
girl that she was his property for the next dance. 
She nodded and smiled at him, but as the music had 
not yet begun, and as the circle of young men showed 
a jealous tendency to close in against his attack, he 
turned to the Carterets and Farings who stood near, 
and they admitted him to their conversation after the 
manner of old friends. They chaffed him on his 
repulse at the hands of the young men, and offered 
to make a wager with him at any terms he liked if 
he would try it again. 

But Sybil Carteret nodded a sympathetic head and 
took his part, saying: 


4 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

“ Never mind, Dicky! They’re all much too 
young. Girls hate young men. It’s the old and 
settled ones like you whom they adore. Wait till 
you’ve had your dance! — And a word in your ear! 
There’s a balcony yonder, on the garden side of the 
h ouse — a long, long balcony divided into something 
like cabinets particuliers by palms and things. You 
can drag her there and make love to her.” 

Young Blake laughed, and asked: 

“What’s her name? I don’t even know her 
name.” Mrs. Carteret told him that it was Vittoria 
Fleming, and he remembered that his father had 
known. He was thinking how odd that was when 
the waltz music began, and he forgot it again in his 
attack — successful this time, to the vociferous ap- 
plause of the Carterets and Farings— upon the circle 
of the young men. 

Miss Vittoria Fleming danced so much better than 
any one else Blake had ever known that he found 
himself, somewhat to his astonishment, taking a real 
and half-intoxicated delight in that hitherto despised 
entertainment. He and his father had often stood 
apart and jeered morosely at the ludicrous aspect 
of a roomful of otherwise sane people hopping or 
gliding gravely about with their arms round each 
other, albeit common civility sometimes demanded 
a like absurdity of themselves; but he was conscious 
that this girl danced because the necessity for dancing 
was in her soul— that she danced as naturally and 
with as instinctive a grace as leaves dance in a breeze; 
5 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


it was an expression of something in her and not a 
laboriously learned art. He forgot the passage of 
time and the things round him, and was conscious 
only of being swept away in a perfection of move- 
ment, as one is swept away in the surge and thrill of 
very beautiful music. Then suddenly they halted 
because the waltz was over, and Blake gave a little 
nervous laugh of surprise that it was so, and found 
himself looking into the eyes of Miss Vittoria Fleming, 
who also seemed a bit surprised and even displeased. 

They were near the open windows which Sybil 
Carteret had pointed out, and he turned toward 
them, saying: 

“There ought to be a balcony somewhere here- 
abouts unless I’ve been misinformed.” 

“Oh yes,” said the girl, composedly. “The 
balcony is just outside these windows. Fve already 
been there.” 

Blake looked at her and, in spite of himself, 
laughed. “Let’s try for a breath of fresh air, then,” 
said he. “I suppose I ought to return you to your 
chaperon, whoever that is, but I don’t want to. I’m 
selfish.” 

“Oh, she doesn’t matter,” the girl said. “I’m with 
my cousin, Mrs. Dudley, but she’s far from strict. 
I dare say you’d find her somewhere on this balcony 
herself if you wanted her. She’s not the fierce sort of 
chaperon at all. I haven’t seen her for a half-hour.” 

They went out through one of the long windows 
which were set close together down one side of the 
6 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


ball-room, and found themselves in a sort of tiny 
stall, set about and shut in by palms and flowering 
plants, for all the long balcony had been so divided 
into dim green nooks. There was a cushioned seat 
placed against the outer rail, and over it one made out 
the black outlines of roofs and chimneys against a 
starry sky. A certain effect of discretion was lent 
the place by the fact that the balcony was so narrow 
as to make impossible a complete retreat from the 
public eye. The two sitting there must dimly be 
seen from the lighted ball-room, though, in the half- 
darkness, identity was fairly lost. 

They stood for a moment in silence looking out 
across the quiet sky, and then, turning, made them- 
selves comfortable among the cushions. The girl 
sat leaning forward a little, and a shaft of light from 
the window before them fell warmly upon her face 
and across her round throat, and touched one 
shoulder. Blake looked down at her without speak- 
ing. Something of that unwonted intoxication of the 
senses which had stirred him was awake still, and it 
stirred afresh as he slowly realized the girl’s great 
and uncommon beauty. 

He did not know many girls, for he and his father 
spent most of their time in travel, and, as has been 
said, they went to very few dances, where, it may be 
taken for granted, girls abound as nowhere else. 
In consequence, he had rather the British or Con- 
tinental idea of the young unmarried woman— the 
jeune fille as distinguished from her cousin in America, 
7 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


where the jeune fille does not exist. But he was not 
an obtuse man, and he realized that this girl was not 
at all the sort of young person whom he had shown 
such agility in avoiding. 

He had called her, in pointing her out to his father, 
a rather splendid young person, and he remembered 
that now, and decided that the adjective had been 
well chosen. “Splendid” was the word. The girl’s 
face and body and bearing all gave a curious effect 
of unusual vitality, and yet with it all there was 
no lack of delicate fineness. Most women of super- 
abundant vitality appear florid and a bit coarse — as 
they often really are — like certain varieties of over- 
gorgeous flowers, but Miss Vittoria Fleming was very 
far indeed from being anything of this sort. The 
quality in her seemed to be a certain potent magic of 
personality, a quality physical enough doubtless, but 
not to be described in terms of color or of line. In- 
deed, it cannot be described at all, for the strong per- 
sonal magnetism which a few people exert upon 
almost all who come near them is quite beyond 
description. 

Her likeness to a celebrated lady of the operatic 
world was, Blake found, less apparent at close-range 
than at a distance — where it was really striking — for 
the girl’s mouth was shorter and fuller and her fore- 
head quite different, and she had a better chin, and, 
in her cheeks a dull understain of red which never 
went quite away. The resemblance was closer in 
the strong, slim figure, and in a certain uncommon 
8 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


grace of movement — like an animal or a trained 
dancer. 

“I wish you’d tell me something,” he said at last, 
and the girl turned and looked up at him. 

“Sybil Carteret,” he went on, “told me that your 
name was Vittoria, and that is such an uncommon 
name for an American that it made me wonder. You 
don’t look like an American either, you know. You 
look Latin. Why did they call you Vittoria ?” 

She shook her head with a little grave smile. 

“I truly don’t know,” said she. “Possibly I’ve 
Italian blood. My mother’s name was Bianca — 1 
found that out by accident once.” She caught the 
man’s slight puzzled frown, and explained: 

“You see, I’ve never known my mother. She died 
when I was a tiny child, and my father — well, her 
death affected my father very much indeed. He never 
speaks of her, and he never allows me to speak of her. 
I’ve never even seen a portrait of my mother. I 
expect that is rather odd, isn’t it ? But then we’re ex- 
tremely odd, my father and I — at least, we have lived 
oddly.” She took her eyes from Blake’s, and that 
deep understain of color in her cheeks heightened a 
very little. She said: 

“You didn’t ask for a family history, did you?” 

But the man said, quickly: 

“I’m asking for it now. Please go on. I’m in- 
terested, truly.” 

Miss Fleming looked up at him again in her grave, 
ungirlish fashion. 

9 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“That’s very civil of you,” she said, after a little 
pause. “Of course, there’s no reason why you 
should care to hear about my oddness.” And Blake 
gave a sudden involuntary laugh. That had been 
such a very strange thing to say. He decided that 
the girl had a great deal to learn in the way of that 
inconsequential banter which makes social inter- 
course possible. 

Oddly still, she went on to echo his thought. 

“But I have no — small talk,” she said. “Isn’t 
that what it’s called — small talk ? I’ve never been 
taught it, and so if I’m to talk at all I might as well 
talk about me — about my father and me. It’s all 
I know.” She met the kindly laugh in the man’s 
eyes, and her own eyes smiled back at him. 

“I’ve always lived at Standish, our place in Con- 
necticut,” she said. “It’s not far from Mickleford. 
Father and I have lived buried there ever since I can 
remember. We never have visitors, and we see none 
of the neighbors — there aren’t many, anyhow — except 
Beau Temple.” 

“Beau Temple?” broke in the man. “Do you 
mean Beaumont Temple, the novelist ?” And she 
nodded. 

“Yes, he’s an old friend of my father’s — and of 
mine too — my only one, I fancy. Do you know 
him?” 

“I’ve met him once or twice,” Blake said. “I 
wish I knew him better, but, you see, he’s rather a 
first-magnitude star. He’s a very important person.” 

10 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


She asked: “Have you read his books ?” 

Blake said: “Yes, oh yes! Some of them, that is. 
You see, I’m travelling a great deal. I don’t get 
much of a chance. They’re very fine, of course. 
One knows that.” And the girl gave a sudden little 
laugh of amusement. 

“Oh, confess you think them dull!” she said. 
“Well, I think they’re dull, too, but Beau is a nice 
person, and I’m very, very fond of him. If it hadn’t 
been for him I should long ago have forgotten the 
use of words. I should have become a vegetable, for 
father and I exchange about three sentences a 
day.” 

“And what else do you do at Standish ?” inquired 
the man, “besides talking to Beaumont Temple? 
It sounds a wee bit monotonous.” 

“It is more than a wee bit monotonous,” she said, 
frowning. “It is dreadful. And yet— until my 
cousin asked me to come to New York, I got on with 
it well enough. I had my dogs and my horse and 
always my books. I’ve read everything, I think.” 
She broke out again into her sudden little laugh. 

“I shocked a very dear old lady terribly the other 
day — Mrs. Crowly — by mentioning a book that I’d 
lately read— Weininger’s Sex and Character. Do you 
think it’s terrible for a girl to have read Sex and 
Character ? I suppose you do.” 

“Well, really,” said Blake, uneasily— “ really, I 
don’t know. I’m afraid I don’t know any girls who 
go into things to quite that extent.” He began to 

li 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


laugh, and he shook his head at her in a sort of mock 
despair. 

“You don't really exist, of course," said he. “I 
know Pm imagining all this. You never existed out- 
side of mid-Victorian fiction. If you were real you'd 
be very lean, and you'd have thin, tight hair and 
spectacles. And you certainly wouldn't dance as 
you do. Oh no! I don’t believe in you at all. — Tell 
me," he demanded, abruptly, “how did you, shut up 
in a country-house with a hermit and a lot of books, 
learn to dance like — like that?” 

The dark understain of color in the girl’s cheeks 
deepened again and she looked away. 

“ I don’t know," she said, half under her breath — 
“oh, I don't know! I danced with the wind, I 
suppose. I suppose I danced with the leaves and the 
sunlight on the garden-path. I don’t know." And 
that seemed to the man to be one of the quaintest and 
one of the most pathetic little speeches he had ever 
heard. But she turned to him with a swift impulse, 
her great dark eyes searching him for mockery. 

“Please don't laugh," she said, quickly. “That 
was a silly thing to say, but — I hate to be laughed 
at." The voice died away, but the girl sat where 
she was, quite still, her eyes upon Blake's eyes, and 
the faces of both of them were grave and unsmiling. 

After a little the man shook his head. 

“Did you think I'd laugh ?” he asked. And after a 
moment more she looked away and bent her beautiful 
head, and he saw her take one very deep breath, 
12 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and saw her hands clasp and unclasp in her lap. 
In the end she said: 

“No . . . no. I think you’d understand.” 

Before them, out in the lighted ball-room, the 
music was playing again and dancers whirled past 
their retreat, but the two neither heard nor saw. 
An odd fit of constraint came upon them, a sort of 
embarrassment— a tacit recognition of that sudden, 
still moment of meeting eyes. And the man, very 
manlike, sought refuge from it in a wholly banal 
speech. He said: 

“How do you like it here in New York? Is it 
better than Standish and your books ?” 

She nodded her head, and, after a moment, abrupt- 
ly that amazing flush of life and splendid youth 
transfigured her. 

“I love it!” she cried out. “I’ve had the most 
wonderful time this winter. The most fairy-princess 
sort of a time. You see, I’ve been visiting my cousin, 
Mrs. Dudley. She brought me out in December, 
and at Christmas we had a huge house-party at her 
Tuxedo place, and then six weeks of dances and 
opera and theatres and things here in town, and 
then in Lent we went to Palm Beach, which I 
adored, and now here I am in town again, and this 
is the last dance of the season, and I could cry. Oh, 
you can’t conceive what a heavenly time I ve had! 
Fancy these past four or five months after all those 
years in the country! 

“I love it!” she cried again. “It’s living, really, 
13 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


truly living! I didn’t know what that was before. I 
only dreamed about it. ... I suppose I only know the 
first steps of it now, but I love it. ... I feel as if I’d 
been cheated out of something beautiful and thrilling 
all my life. I feel as if I’d always been in the dark. 
Well, I’m in the sun now, and I love it.” She turned 
toward the man with shining eyes, her hands at her 
breast. 

“I want to live!” she said. “I do want to live! 
Life is so very wonderful. One ought to find such 
wonderful things in it. . . . Oh, I want to live, even if it 
hurts me sometimes. You don’t know how I want 
it!” And once again that evening Blake thought he 
had seldom heard a more pathetic little speech. The 
girl seemed to him like a child in a dim room stretch- 
ing its tiny arms toward the light of the window. 

In spite of her appalling catholicity in the matter 
of literature, she knew so pitifully little of that life 
she cried out for! 

“Your father lived, I take it,” said he, “and it 
seems to have hurt him rather badly.” But the girl’s 
eager, flushed face did not change. 

“However cruelly life may hurt me,” she said, “I 
want to live. It’s in me to want to live — to crave it.” 

And the man felt all at once convinced that she 
spoke the truth, even though she spoke as a child 
speaks — in utter ignorance. 

He nodded his head very gravely once or twice, 
and said: 

“Yes, it’s in you, I think. Life, such as you speak 

14 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


of, is rather sure to come to you. You’re young and 
brave and very eager for happiness — all the kinds 
of happiness there are. And— if I may say it without 
offence — you’re very beautiful. Oh yes, what you 
crave is sure to come to you — for good or ill.” 

“ For good or ill,” said the girl, “ I want it. I am 
not afraid.” And again he nodded very gravely at 
her, saying: 

“No, I’m sure of that. Perhaps you’d better be. 
Life is rather terrible sometimes.” 

“I am not afraid,” the girl repeated. 

She looked past him, as if she were looking toward 
that future she sought so eagerly, as if she were trying 
to pierce the veil that cloaked it, and as if she chafed 
at the obscurity. Her eyes were wide and fearless, 
and her red lips were drawn tight together. All her 
slim, strong body seemed, as it were, to press forward 
to the quest, unhesitating, insistent. But the man who 
sat beside her drew a quick little sigh, for, though he 
was not a very fanciful man, he was conscious of an 
odd uneasiness. And he was aware that he was 
afraid for her, though of what he could not have told. 

So these two sat in silence for a little time; it may 
have been no more than a minute, but to the man it 
was very long. Then at last, as if she realized quite 
suddenly how grave they had become and how far 
they had strayed from a ball-room atmosphere, the 
girl broke into a half-bewildered, half-amused little 
laugh, and once more leaned back among her silken 
cushions. 


15 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Will you be good enough to forgive me for my 
ravings ?” she asked. “ I must seem very, very young 
to you and very foolish ! Don’t I ? But you’ve 
been so astonishingly good-natured over it!” 

“Substitute sympathetic for good-natured,” said 
Blake, “and I won’t complain. If you’ve done me 
the honor of being frank with me — telling me the 
things you think and feel, it seems to me that I ought 
to be very grateful. It’s an unusual compliment.” 

The girl looked up at him swiftly and away again, 
and she said: 

“Thank you. You’re — very good, you know.” 

And after a moment, she said: 

“Somebody else would have laughed, but you — 
understand things. . . . I’m glad.” 

The dance-music had stopped again, and presently 
Miss Fleming became aware of it, and asked to be 
taken to her chaperon, saying that by this time search- 
ing parties were doubtless on foot in her pursuit. But 
when they had risen to go she paused a moment, and, 
turning, looked once at the quiet, starlit sky, and once 
round her at the palms and flowering plants which 
hemmed in their narrow retreat, and for the smallest 
moment she looked up into Blake’s eyes, and then 
moved away. It was curiously eloquent. She could 
not have said so much, the man realized, in many 
words. Indeed, she could not have said it at all — 
her swift, little, regretful farewell; but he understood, 
and was conscious again of that inward stir which 
her dancing had first wakened in him, and which the 
16 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


straight glance of her eyes had rekindled afterward. 
Already a strange little sense of intimacy had come 
upon the two — a very thin and frail thread, as it were, 
invisible, but binding their lives together for good 
or ill. 

So, without further words, they went out into the 
ball-room and down its thronged length. At the 
far end they found Mrs. Dudley, and Blake left the 
girl there — only to see her at once snapped up by a 
youth whom he heartily disliked. Then he found his 
hostess, made his adieux, and presently was in the 
street. 

He had, in his hasty leave-taking, failed to observe 
an odd bit of by-play for which he was in part re- 
sponsible, but, even if he had seen and heard it, it 
would have conveyed nothing to him whatever, so 
his loss was small His progress down the ball-room 
with Vittoria Fleming had been eyed with a strange 
excitement by a certain elderly gentleman who for 
many years had figured rather prominently in New 
York’s social life. This gentleman at last seized 
by the arm another elderly gentleman who was 
passing by, and, still in great excitement, whispered : 

“Look there! Look there! Do you see young 
Richard Blake walking with that Fleming girl whom 
Catharine Dudley is bringing out ? Do you see ?” 

The second elderly gentleman, blinking confusedly, 
admitted that he saw, and asked, “What of it?” 
Whereupon the other again repeated the names. 

“Don’t you understand ? Blake — Blake! Young 
i7 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Richard Blake and Pender Fleming’s girl!” And 
at that the second elderly gentleman burst suddenly 
into a strange laugh, and began to stare, saying: 

“Good God! Fleming’s girl! . . . Good God, I 
say! That is a queer trick! Eh! What?” 

“Very queer, indeed!” agreed the first elderly gen- 
tleman. 


II 


BLAKE PERE LOSES A HAND TO FATE 

I T was a warm night of late spring, clear and starry, 
as has been said, and Blake turned down the 
Avenue on foot. Beyond the long line of waiting 
carriages he crossed to the Park side, which was 
deserted at that hour, and walked slowly on his way 
beside the low stone wall. He went without haste, 
because he had not very far to go — a matter of 
possibly a mile and a half — and he wished time and 
solitude to think. He realized that he had, on that 
evening, been more profoundly moved by a woman’s 
charm than for a very long time — probably more 
than ever before, and he was disturbed by it, and a 
little angry and a little alarmed, for he had no in- 
tention of losing that complete freedom of his which 
he prized more than anything else in the world. The 
alarm, if so strong a word can be used, arose from 
the fact that he knew himself rather better than do 
most young men of his age. He was, at this time, 
one-and-thirty, but in the course of his roving career 
he had been through more diverse experiences than 
most men who remain respectably at home ever 
meet in the whole span of a long lifetime. And, as 
3 19 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


the fruit of these experiences, he knew that he was in 
peculiar danger so long as he allowed himself to be 
near Miss Vittoria Fleming or even to think much 
about her. For each human being in this world there 
is one other being, or perhaps there are two or three, 
whose attraction is so powerful that it overwhelms all 
other considerations, all obstacles, all laws — if such 
be in the way — all matters of right and wrong. Most 
people never meet this strange complement to them- 
selves, but, in the rare cases in which the meeting 
has been brought about, the world’s great romances 
have been enacted, and sometimes history has been 
made or unmade. 

Young Blake, as he walked slowly south on the soft 
earth beside the low Park wall, looked his Fate in the 
face, and acknowledged it gravely with no pretence 
of non-recognition; for he knew well that unless he 
made a determined effort to avoid Vittoria Fleming, 
his life would be taken out of his hands and stirred 
and moved and at length settled for good or ill to- 
gether with her life. But he passionately desired his 
freedom, and as he walked, without being conscious 
of it, he quickened his pace to a sort of fierce march, 
and he struck savagely at the ground with the stick 
in his hand and swore a determined oath that neither 
this girl nor any other being should rob him of that 
which he held so dear, should turn him — as he put it 
to himself — into a tame cat purring beside the domes- 
tic hearth! — an attender of dances! — an opera-box 
ornament! — the father of a family! 

20 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


He gave a sort of bellow of rage as he saw himself 
in these various capacities, and a lone policeman 
standing under a lamp-post at the Fifty-ninth Street 
entrance of the Park looked at him with not un- 
natural suspicion, and even followed a step or two 
after him, debating with himself whether the man 
might not be mad. 

But in the end he came to the lofty and ornate 
building in Forty-fourth Street which gives expensive 
shelter to bachelors, and where he and his father had 
— in different stories — their chambers. The lift- 
boy told him that Mr. Blake senior had come in 
nearly an hour before, and so he went at once to his 
father’s rooms. He found Creighton Blake hanging 
over a table whereupon was spread a large map of the 
South Pacific Ocean, measuring off the distances 
between certain island groups, and making notes of 
these with a pencil and a bit of paper. Fie gave over 
his employment at his son’s entrance, and motioned 
to the other side of the room, where stood decanters 
and siphons of soda-water and smoking things. 
The younger man had already laid off his coat and 
hat, and had moved in the direction indicated without 
waiting to be pressed. 

He turned back with a cigarette between his 
lips and the ice clinking cheerfully in his long 
glass. 

“I walked down the Avenue,” he explained. 
“That’s why I’ve been so long. I wanted a breath 
of fresh air after those overheated rooms.” 


21 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Did you have your dance with the pretty girl 
inquired his father. And young Blake said: 

“With the girl who looks like Lina Strozzi ? — yes; 
oh yes, I had it.” He permitted himself a little, 
gentle laugh, and grinned across at the man who sat 
by the table, but Blake pere, if he had seemed to 
betray emotion over this matter earlier in the even- 
ing, certainly had recovered meanwhile, for his face 
showed no more than a mild and rather perfunctory 
interest. 

“She is certainly a very beautiful girl,” the other 
went on, “and, though I haven’t played with little 
girls much, I should think she is unusually interest- 
ing. She has — charm — extraordinary charm.” He 
spoke with no enthusiasm, but rather critically, as 
one making an admission against his will. 

The other man said: 

“Yes, yes; quite so!” in an absent tone. And after 
a moment he said: 

“That’s high praise — from you.” 

But his son made a deprecatory gesture. He 
said : 

“Oh, well, one must admit that Miss Fleming is 
rather unusual. I don’t mean to rave over her. I 
merely speak in the terms I should use if I had seen 
an uncommonly fine picture or heard a new opera 
that pleased me. The girl has — a personality. . . . 
And she’s amazingly vital, somehow. Yes, vital. 
I think she has a sort of passion for life. She has 
lived shut up in a country-house for most of her life.” 

22 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Yes,” said the elder man, under his breath. It 
was as if he spoke to himself. 

“Standish,” he said, nodding. 

His son turned and stared at him. 

“Now, how the devil did you know that ?” he cried, 
and he thought that for just an instant his father 
looked startled. But if so, it was for no more than 
an instant, and he said, indifferently: 

“I think some one told me — some one who was 
speaking of this Miss Fleming to-night. She is Pender 
Fleming’s daughter, you know — or you don’t know, 
probably. He was before your time — older than I am.” 

The younger man began to walk back and forth 
across the room, holding his glass in one hand. 

“A sort of passion for life,” he said, frowning 
thoughtfully. “I wonder how it’ll end with her — 
an extraordinarily beautiful young creature like that, 
popped suddenly into the world with a prodigious 
hunger for happiness, and no standards of experience 
to go by. By Jove, I — wonder! You know, there’s 
something rather tragic about it — and there’s tragedy 
in her face too. ... I saw it. Real tragedy. I 
wonder — ” 

He wheeled about swiftly, for the elder man had 
uttered a sharp exclamation that was followed by a 
little crash upon the littered table before him, as if he 
had struck it a blow with his hand. He leaned for- 
ward as he sat, and his face, in the concentrated glow 
of the electric reading-light, seemed to work a little 
and to settle into deep lines. 

23 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


"Are you preparing to fall in love with Vittoria 
Fleming ?” he demanded. 

His son gave a short laugh of utter amazement. 

"Fall in love with her ?” he cried. "In love? 
Good God, no! What are you thinking of?” 

"Your words certainly have that sound,” said 
Blake pere, sharply. 

"Well, then, they sound wrong,” retorted his son. 
"I’m not falling in love with anybody, thank you!” 

The other bent his head, and his fingers played and 
tapped upon the outspread map before him. After 
a little silence, he said, in a different tone: 

"It would be — very unfortunate. I should be 
more sorry than I can say.” But his son laughed 
again, saying, easily: 

"Well, you may set your mind quite at rest. I have 
no intention of falling in love, and I certainly have no 
intention of allowing my freedom to be interfered 
with in any way. As to marriage, I think I have no 
vocation for that. I’ve roamed too much. I’m no 
more apt to marry than you are to marry again. We’re 
both confirmed wanderers, I fancy.” 

The elder man’s face relaxed slightly, and he gave 
a faint smile. 

"I dare say I’m alarming myself causelessly,” he 
admitted. "I must be getting old when I begin to 
assume the anxious-hen-with-one-chick attitude. Yes, 
I must be getting old. Still,” he said, frowning down 
at his outspread hands, "I wish you — I wish you 
hadn’t met this young lady. Doubtless your in- 

24 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


tentions are firm enough, but I wish you hadn’t met 
her. I should be more sorry than I can say if . . . 
very unfortunate.” His voice trailed away into 
silence, and the younger man was left staring at him 
with a sort of exasperation. 

“Hang it, father!” he broke out at last, “I can’t 
say anything stronger than I’ve already said! I’m 
not in love. I don’t mean to fall in love, and that’s 
all there is of it. I’m not quite an inexperienced 
school-boy, you know. I’ve served my apprentice- 
ship in — in what are called love-affairs, and they’re 
not — well, they’re not as labelled. They’re not up 
to specifications. Besides, this is a young girl, and 
a love-affair with her would naturally mean marriage. 
May I be hanged before I’m married !” 

He began again his restless march back and forth 
across the room, but, after a little, halted again near 
where his father sat. 

“And still,” said he, “ I don’t quite understand your 
uncommon vehemence about this particular girl — 
about Miss Vittoria Fleming. If one were going to 
fall in love at all — which I am not — why not with her ? 
What’s wrong with her ? I take it you wouldn’t 
fly into a passion if I had been dancing with Marian 
Cobham, or with Caroline Stanley, or any other of the 
hundred we saw this evening. Why this anguish 
over Vittoria Fleming ?” 

The elder man stirred in his chair. 

“Oh, I — I don’t know,” he said, slowly. “You 
see, it happened to be Miss Fleming, not one of the 
25 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


others. . . . That’s all. . . . And perhaps — perhaps in 
the glimpse I had of her, I saw what you seem to 
have seen, an atmosphere of — tragedy. She has 
tragedy in her face and about her.” The man’s 
head was bent over the table, and he said something 
further in a low tone. Young Blake did not hear 
the words, and asked: 

“What ? I beg your pardon ?” His father shook 
his head. 

“Nothing!” 

But what he had said was: 

“Small wonder! Oh, small wonder!” 

And after that he said no more for a long time, only 
sat with bent head, his hands stretched out before 
him, the fingers moving idly about upon the map 
of the South Pacific Ocean. But at last he drew 
a long sigh, and rose to his feet. He made a gesture 
with both hands which seemed definitely to dismiss 
the subject they had been discussing — to say, 
“Enough! No more of that!” — and he took a fresh 
cigar, throwing away the one which he had allowed 
to die out, and lighted it, and puffed a few great 
clouds of smoke. 

“I’ve been checking up my probable wanderings 
for the next six or eight months,” he said — “as 
much as I care to check them in advance, that is. 
Actually, I mean to move where and when the spirit 
stirs me.” 

“You’re off at the end of this week then ?” asked 
the younger man, and Creighton Blake nodded. 

26 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“I sail from Vancouver on the twentieth,” said he. 
“ I reach Suva in the Fijis in fifteen days. McNaugh- 
ton meets me there with the schooner, and then — the 
world’s before me; at least, the South Seas are.” 

He turned quickly, as if a sudden thought had 
struck him. 

“Chuck up your Armenian idea and come with 
me!” he said. “By Jove, why not? You can go 
there any time. Ararat and the ark will wait. Come 
with me.” 

The younger man stared. 

“Oh, I say!” he exclaimed, “how about your 
Australian ? How about McNaughton ? And, for 
that matter, how about the people I’m to go to 
Armenia with ?” 

“Hang McNaughton!” said his father. “There’s 
room in the schooner for a third. We could manage 
easily enough.” He came a pace nearer with a sort 
of excitement in his usually still face. 

“Come with me!” he insisted. “Let your people 
go without you. I particularly wish you’d come.” 

The younger man sat against the edge of the big 
table, and regarded his father with a frowning, puzzded 
smile. It struck him that the elder man had been 
all the evening behaving very oddly, and in a manner 
singularly unlike himself. 

“Yes, but look here!” he objected. “We’ve 
talked this all over before, and decided to go dif- 
ferent ways. It was really your own plan to go off 
with this McNaughton. You practically turned me 

27 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


out of it when I suggested joining you. I don't 
understand." 

“I suppose a man may change his mind?" said 
the other. He looked a bit defiant — rather like an 
elderly boy who knows that he is acting foolishly, 
but persists in it out of sheer stubbornness. 

“ Change your plans and come with us!" he 
urged again. And quite suddenly the other man 
was aware that his father was trying to get him 
away from New York, and from — whom ? Trying 
to make sure of him by having him under his own 
eye. And with that a wave of anger flared up in 
him, for he conceived that he was being treated like 
a child. He stood up, frowning. 

“Oh, this is nonsense!" he said, impatiently. 
“We can't both change our plans this late in the 
day. You know quite well that yours would be 
altogether deranged by my coming with you." He 
looked into his father's eyes with a brief laugh that 
was almost of scorn. 

“You are rather assuming the anxious-hen-with- 
one-chick attitude, aren’t you?" said he. “Don't, 
I beg of you! It’s a long time since I was a chick. 
I'm quite able-bodied, and no more foolish than I 
shall always be." 

Abruptly the elder man's flush of eagerness fled 
from him, and he seemed to shrink within himself. 
He looked all at once tired and old. 

“Ah, well, as you like! As you like!" he said, 
querulously. “You’ve grown up, as you say." 

28 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


The other had taken up his hat and coat in prep- 
aration to leaving the room, but he moved nearer 
to him and touched his son on the arm. 

“ I don’t want to seem altogether an old woman,” 
said he, “but — that girl, you know. Keep away! 
Keep away ! Don’t see any more of her. Put it as 
a sort of favor to me, if you like.” 

A little mischievous whim seized the younger man. 

“Fate may be working against you, you know,” 
he laughed. “One can’t fight Fate.” 

Creighton Blake gave a sudden violent shiver and 
turned back to his table. He said: 

“Good-night! Good-night!” over his shoulder in 
an abrupt tone, and the younger man closed his 
father’s door and went away wondering. 


Ill 


APPEARS DONNA BIANCA 

I T was late when Mrs. Dudley and her charge left 
the dance to go home. Vittoria had been so very 
much in demand, and had been so obviously experi- 
encing what low people would term “the time of her 
life,” that her duenna had lacked the heart to force 
the girl to an earlier departure. Moreover, truth to 
tell, the elder lady herself had been far from dull, 
for she was still young — two or three and thirty — 
and she was very popular both among her own sex 
and among men. 

But when they were at last tucked away in the 
softly cushioned, softly lighted interior of the elec- 
tric brougham, and were rolling homeward up the 
Avenue, she was a little tired and sleepy, and made 
pretence of being more so, to the end of insuring 
silence, for she wanted a space in which to think 
and to prepare a course of action before that in- 
evitable symposium of impressions and recollections 
which, for all women, intervenes between an im- 
portant social event and bed. 

The exigencies of common civility had compelled 
her, much against her will, to ask Richard Blake 
30 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


to call, and she wondered if certain other exigencies 
did not demand that she and Vittoria Fleming, or 
at least Vittoria, should avoid seeing him if he chose 
to take advantage of her invitation. She liked 
Blake very much indeed, as did almost all who 
knew him, but she was aware of certain facts which 
not unreasonably seemed to her to make it impos- 
sible that he and the girl who was in her charge 
should see much of each other or should run the 
risk of awakening between them any interest. 

It has been said that she was a rather young 
woman, and therefore the things she knew about this 
matter were necessarily hearsay and report; still, 
the very facts, whatever softening and extenuating 
circumstances may have draped them, were clear 
enough, and, even to Mrs. Dudley, who was a very 
modern person and no prude, they seemed to loom 
very high across the path of Vittoria Fleming and 
Richard Blake — an unsurmountable obstruction, with 
“ Rue Barree” printed black across it. 

So she leaned back in her corner of the brougham 
with closed eyes, and tried to think what she must 
do in the perfectly possible event of these two per- 
fectly impossible young people taking a fancy to 
each other. 

It was completely out of the question to tell Vit- 
toria frankly what she knew, and, without that re- 
course, it might be a very difficult affair to manage. 
It came to Mrs. Dudley suddenly that young girls, 
though very refreshing, were rather a nuisance, and 
3 1 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


she was almost glad she had none of her own, 
though hitherto her childless state had been the sole 
sorrow of her life. 

She had progressed not a step on her way of prep- 
aration when they reached home, and no further 
when, somewhat later, Miss Fleming knocked at the 
door of her dressing-room and asked if she might 
come in for a few minutes before going to bed. 

She said “yes” in the apprehensive tone of a 
student who, entirely without preparation, enters his 
class-room to be examined in a term’s work. She 
was sitting before her dressing-table, and her maid, a 
silent, middle-aged Swiss, who understood English 
only when it was pronounced very slowly and very 
distinctly, was doing her hair for the night; but she 
called over her shoulder, and the girl moved up be- 
side her and stood there a moment before settling 
herself in a near-by chair. 

She was in a thin silk dressing-gown that, with 
every movement of her beautiful young body, lay 
close and veil-like, and Mrs. Dudley cried out in 
admiration and despair when she saw her. The girl 
was so slender that with less perfect modelling she 
must have been thin, but in reality so round and 
compact and deep-chested was she that, to borrow 
Catharine Dudley’s vigorous phrase, “she had not a 
bone to her name.” There is in English no name for 
this rare condition, but a Frenchman would have 
called the girl a “ fausse maigre ,” and so expressed 
the matter perfectly. 


32 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“My dear child,” said the elder woman, “it is a 
very good thing for us both that I have never had any 
illusions about my personal appearance. If I were 
in the least vain, I shouldn’t be able to bear having 
such a creature as you near me. I should scratch 
your eyes out in sheer rage. I suppose you know 
that you are a great beauty ? Heaps of people must 
have told you so.” 

The girl colored and gave an embarrassed little 
laugh. 

“I’m glad you think me pretty,” she said. “I’m 
very glad. There’s been nobody to tell me so, you 
see, until I came to New York — even if any one 
thought it.” 

“How many men told you so to-night ?” demanded 
Mrs. Dudley, and watched the dark color again flood 
up into Vittoria Fleming’s cheeks. 

“ I think only one,” she said, simply. “ Directly, 
that is. And,” she added, “I suppose I mustn’t tell 
who he was. That wouldn’t be quite fair, would it ?” 

Mrs. Dudley came as near roaring with laughter as 
a lady may, but the girl went on, quite soberly: 

“And, anyhow, I look like a thin squaw or some- 
thing of the sort beside such beauties as Mrs. 
Faring and Mrs. Rivers. I looked like a starved 
immigrant with a print handkerchief over her head. 
Mrs. Rivers is the most beautiful person I have ever 
seen or heard of.” 

“Yes, she is very, very beautiful,” agreed the elder 
woman, “and so is Beatrix Faring, though people are 
33 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


beginning to call Beatrix statuesque and handsome, 
and that’s the beginning of her downfall. That’s 
what comes to every great beauty. She marries and 
continues to reign for a little time, and then she begins 
to take on more weight, and quite suddenly she is 
cut out by some new girl. Mrs. Rivers is reigning 
just now, and she is splendid beyond words, but if I’m 
not mistaken you’ll damage her severely before an- 
other season is out. You see, my dear, you have 
something that none of those others have — not 
Beatrix Faring, nor Sybil Carteret, nor even Mrs. 
Rivers. Your type is entirely exotic. All these 
others have been the usual sort of Anglo-Saxon 
beauty raised to the n th degree. You’re pure Latin, 
and that gives you a great advantage. You’re un- 
usual. That’s because your mother was Italian, of 
course.” 

“Ah!” cried the girl. “Then she was Italian?” 
Mrs. Dudley stared at her. 

“ Do you mean to say you didn’t know ?” 

The girl shook her head. 

“Her death nearly killed my father,” said she, 
“ and he never speaks of her or allows me to. I know 
her name was Bianca, and that, with my name, made 
me sure that she must have been Italian. But 
that’s quite all I know. You see, there has been no 
one to tell me, and I’ve become so used, all my life, 
to avoiding any mention of her that I can’t make 
her seem at all real to me. It’s as if I never had any 
mother at all.” 


34 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Mrs. Dudley looked across at the girl, frowning 
thoughtfully, and after a little she said: 

“You poor baby! 

“Yes,” she said, after another pause, “I knew Pen- 
der was terribly — affected and — changed. Though 
Heaven knows he was always sombre enough! But 
I didn’t know how he carried it to that extreme. 
You poor, dear child!” 

The girl leaned forward with eager, flushed cheeks 
and pleading eyes. 

“Would you mind ?” she said. “ Do you think you 
could — could tell me a little about my mother ? 
Did you ever know her or even see her ? . . . Even 
any littlest bit of a thing, to make her real to me. I 
should love it so! ... It seems to me rather terrible 
for a girl never to have any mother, not even a scrap 
of one. . . . Couldn’t you tell me a little about her ?” 

A quick moisture of tears had come to the girl’s 
dark eyes and her lips were trembling. She seemed 
to the elder woman a poignantly pathetic figure, this 
splendid young beauty who begged with tears for 
“even the littlest bit of a thing” to make her mother 
real to her. 

“Oh, my dear,” she cried, “I wish I could give you 
more than I can! I know so little! I saw your 
mother only once or twice, I think. You see, I was 
a child when she married your father — eight or ten. 
I remember only that she was very beautiful and kind 
and sweet, and that every one loved her. She had 
wistful, pleading eyes, I know. I realized that, young 
4 35 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


as I was. And I remember very well the one time 
I actually met her. It was at old Mrs. Crowley’s — 
Aunt Arabella Crowley, as every one calls her — down 
in Gramercy Park. I forget why I was taken there, 
but I remember that when we went into the drawing- 
room your beautiful mother was there, talking to 
Aunt Arabella. I was a stumpy, ill-natured little 
brat at that time, and hideously shy, but when she put 
her arm about me, and kissed my cheek, and began 
to talk to me, not as grown-ups talk to children, 
tolerantly from their mountain-top, but woman to 
woman, as it were, I simply grovelled at her feet. I 
know that I used to dream about her for years after 
that, and, when I read fairy tales and such, the fairy 
princess was always your mother. ... As a matter 
of fact, I believe she was a sort of princess in her own 
right. I know before she was married she used to be 
called ‘Donna Bianca,’ and some one once told me 
that her father, who had died long since, was Prince 
Cornaro (her mother was English) ; whether or not 
he was the head of his family I don’t know, but I 
suppose, in any case, you’ve a right to the title, and if 
it’s the Venetian Cornaro, you come of a very old and 
illustrious house, my dear. There was a real queen 
among them once. Caterina Cornaro was Queen of 
Cyprus until she was cheated out of it. I don’t know 
where the later title came from — the princely one. 
I suppose it must have been papal. Those great 
Venetian houses didn’t use titles ordinarily, did they ?’ 

Vittoria did not seem very greatly impressed by 
3 ^ 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


her ancient and illustrious descent, for she sat for 
a long time silent, smiling a little, her eyes wide and 
absent, her hands clasped in her lap. But at last 
she said: 

“Oh, thank you for telling me about her! Thank 
you more than I can say. It’s not a little. It’s a 
great deal. I shall be able to think of her now as 
she was. I shall have a real mother at last.” Two 
tears which had been brimming in her eyes fell and 
wet her flushed cheeks, but they were tears of joy 
and not of sorrow. 

“I shall have a real mother at last,” she said 
again — “a beautiful, tender, fairy-princess mother to 
dream of and talk to. Oh, it was cruel of them to 
cheat me out of my mother for so long!” 

Mrs. Dudley bent forward and kissed her. 

“Yes, my dear,” said she. “I think it was cruel, 
too. And I’m glad to have been able to tell you 
even this little about her. Tm sorry that I know — 
that I can tell no more.” 

“And now,” she said, “tell me about this dance 
to-night. Had you a good time ? And did heaps of 
young men make violent love to you ?” 

Vittoria met her change of tone with a quick 
smile and brightening eyes. 

“A heavenly time!” said she. “Ah, a heavenly 
time! But no young men made violent love to me; 
that is, I think not. Of course, sometimes one 
can’t be quite sure. Oh, by the way ... I met a 
new man to-night. ... I think I like him very much. 
37 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


He had nice eyes and a nice smile. . . . And he 
understands . . . things. ... A weather-beaten-looking 
man — as if he had been in the sun and wind a great 
deal — his name was Blake. Do you know him 
well ? I haven’t seen him at any of the other things 
this winter — not even at the opera.” 

Mrs. Dudley took a long breath. It was come at 
last, then. And she had imagined herself, for the 
present, safe. 

“Blake?” she asked. “Do you mean the father 
or the son, I wonder? They usually go about in 
a pair.” 

“Oh, it would be the son, Pm sure,” said Vit- 
toria. “But I fancy I saw the father too, if there 
is one. He was standing in a doorway with the 
other — that was before my dance with the younger 
one — and I met his eye. A tired man with gray 
hair.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Dudley, slowly. “A tired man: 
that’s Creighton Blake. Yes, he’s very tired, I 
think — and not too happy. He spends his life 
travelling about in strange places. Possibly he 
thinks they’ll rest him, but I doubt if they do. The 
son, Richard, I hardly know. No, I don’t know 
him well. He is not in New York much. Of 
course, I asked him to call when he brought you to 
me after your dance. I almost had to, for after all 
I have known him slightly for a long time. . . . But — 
Well, I don’t know.” 

“You don’t like him?” said the girl, quickly. 

38 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Why? He seemed to me to be a man I should 
trust . . . with anything. A strong sort of man. 
What is wrong with him ?” 

Mrs. Dudley moved uneasily in her chair and 
avoided the girl’s glance. Her face showed a rather 
absurd distress, for she was naturally a very honest 
and direct woman, and, in this instance, honesty 
and directness were out of the question. Another 
sort of woman could have told damaging lies about 
poor Blake, and eased her conscience with the argu- 
ment Jesuitical. But it was difficult for Catharine 
Dudley to lie. She lacked practice. 

“I don’t know,” she said again, with a troubled 
frown. “It is not easy to say just what I feel. I 
don’t want to be unjust to Richard Blake. I 
rather like him. But — when it’s a matter of a young 
girl, I don’t know. He has figured in one or two 
romantic complications that might alarm a mother 
somewhat. I can’t quite explain — ” She halted, a 
bit flushed and breathless, for she found the matter 
difficult, though she had spoken no more than the 
exact truth. 

“Oh, you can tell me anything,” said Vittoria, com- 
posedly. “ I’ve always been allowed to read whatever 
I liked, you see, and I know about most things — 
though I’m a girl, and so supposed to be a fool.” 

Mrs. Dudley uttered a faint and plaintive, “My 
dear! My dear!” but the girl went on, quite calmly: 

“I don’t in the least mind a man’s having had 
what are called ‘affairs’— I think I heartily dislike 
39 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


good young men — so long as the affairs were not 
cowardly or mean, and did not take advantage of 
anybody’s weakness. I can’t believe that Mr. Blake 
has ever done any of those things. Do you know 
that he has ?” 

“No,” said the elder woman, honestly, “I don’t 
know that he has, and I don’t believe that he has. 
And, still, the tendency to ‘affairs’ is not a very prom- 
ising or safe tendency. I think such men are better 
left alone — by girls, that is. Besides, he has the 
roaming habit. He’s always off for some remote 
and unknown land or sea. He’s a sort of gentleman 
vagabond — if that means anything. Vagabonds have 
a kind of romantic interest, my dear, but they’re 
impossible on the practical side. They love and 
ride away.” 

“Mr. Blake hasn’t loved me yet,” objected the 
girl, quite reasonably. “And I’ve no cause at all 
for thinking that he ever will.” She halted upon 
that, for she realized that she was saying something 
she believed to be untrue. There was the matter 
of that long, still look on the balcony outside the 
ball-room: the matter of that mysterious and name- 
less presence which each of the two knew well the 
other had thrilled to. . . . And he had said that she 
was beautiful — albeit in sober argument, not love- 
making. 

Little enough, all this! But out of far less a girl’s 
young fancy builds Spanish castles of beauty and 
delight, and dwells therein. 

40 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“In any case,” she said, “you have asked him to 
call. And I shall see him unless you forbid me. I 
liked him, you know.” 

“Oh,” said the badgered Mrs. Dudley, plaintive- 
ly again, “I shouldn’t think of going so far as that. 
I shouldn’t think of forbidding you anything, child. 
But I truly believe — Ah, well, perhaps he won’t 
call. Then everything will be all right.” 

Miss Fleming allowed herself a slight smile. 

“I think he will call,” said she. “Yes, I think 
he’ll call.” 

Then, because it was very late, she kissed her 
cousin an affectionate good-night and went to her 
own room. Her maid had taken away the discarded 
clothes, and had gone herself, leaving everything 
ready for the night — the windows darkened, for 
morning was already gray outside, and one or two 
of the lights on. 

Vittoria slipped off her silk dressing-gown and 
put out the lights. She stood a moment beside her 
bed in the darkness, and she strained her eyes to 
lift through that darkness the “purple-painted head- 
lands” of the life which was to come to her and 
the love which was to make it sweet. She was with- 
out coherent thought, but oddly her tongue formed 
words. It said again, without her conscious direc- 
tion, what it had said some hours before to Richard 
Blake on the balcony. It said: 

“I want to live! ... I want to live! Life is so very 
wonderful! One ought to find such wonderful 
4i 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


things in it. . . . Oh, I want to live, even if it hurts 
me sometimes! You don’t know how I want it!” 

Out of the gloom a deep and very gentle voice 
warned : 

“Life is rather terrible sometimes.” 

But again the girl’s tongue, unbidden, said: 

“I’m not afraid.” 

The words had almost the sound of a battle-cry — 
a defiance flung in the face of Destiny. 


V 


IV 


“‘he COMETH NOT,’ SHE SAID ” 

ITTORIA’S first thought when she awoke on 



V the following morning — or, to be accurate, on 
the following noon — was of her mother, the perfectly 
new and incredibly beautiful fairy-princess mother. 
And she lay for a long time in that delicious border- 
land between sleep and waking, and made up things 
about the woman who had borne her — made a pict- 
ure of her, sweet and winning, infinitely tender, with 
“wistful eyes” (as Catharine Dudley had said). 

The girl had preserved certain very child-like quali- 
ties through living much alone. Like all children, 
she was given to “pretending,” and now she had 
a new and delectable theme to expand — the mother 
they had cheated her of — the mother who had sud- 
denly become real and near and dear after so very 
long. 

But from that, as she wakened more fully, her 
thoughts drifted by easy degrees to the evening past, 
and suddenly her cheeks stung with a swift warmth 
and her eyes opened wide. She said, aloud: 

“He’ll come to-day!” And, at once, as if she 
imagined him to be already ringing at the door, she 


43 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


fell into a breathless and feverish haste of prepara- 
tion for the day which left her maid, a phlegmatic 
woman, panting resentfully in the rear. 

Blake did not come. 

From close upon five until it was dressing-time 
she waited, smiling, confident, beside the tea-table, 
her eyes furtively upon the door. Each time that 
the admirable Mallow appeared in the doorway, 
pressing the heavy hanging deferentially aside, and 
lifting his solemn tones in announcement, her heart 
gave a swift leap which was almost a physical pain, 
and she was deaf and blind to the faces and voices 
about her. But as the last of the people who had come 
in departed, and Mrs. Dudley, stifling a yawn, said, 
“Dear me! Half after six!” she rose a little pale, and, 
without speaking, went quickly up to her own room. 
There, of course, after the first flood of disappoint- 
ment, something like reason came to her. So many 
scores of perfectly commonplace things might have 
kept him away! 

She laughed and turned to her dressing. 

“HeTl come to-morrow,” she said, but, with all 
considerations admitted, was still conscious of a 
remaining film of disappointment. If he had really 
cared he would have let nothing keep him away. 

And again he did not come. 

Vittoria this time had herself better in hand, but 
she went up to dress for dinner bewildered and a 
little dismayed. Half-way through with her toilet 
the thought came to her that he had never expressed 
44 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


any intention of coming at all. He had thanked 
Mrs. Dudley for her invitation, looked once into 
Vittoria’s eyes, and gone away. 

And yet in all her being she knew that their meet- 
ing had been no casual thing to him. 

“I know it! I know it!” she said to herself, fierce- 
ly. Unawares, she spoke aloud, and, from across the 
room, her maid stared curiously. 

This was Wednesday. On the next day she again 
waited in vain, but in the evening she saw Blake at 
the theatre. She was with a party of people who 
filled two adjoining lower boxes. A new English 
musical-comedy was being played, and the house was 
full; but Vittoria had noticed idly during the first act 
that on the aisle, very near by, a single seat remained 
empty. With the beginning of the second act 
Richard Blake occupied the seat. She had not seen 
him come in. He had slipped into the place after 
the lights of the intermission were lowered and the 
curtain had risen. 

She saw that he was quite alone, and that he did 
not seem very much amused or interested by the 
musical-comedy; for though he watched the stage 
almost without any movement of any sort, he did not 
smile or applaud with the rest of the house, and it 
seemed to her that he even wore a very slight and 
constant frown. When the piece was over he took 
up his hat and moved out with the throng, not look- 
ing about him, and so went from her sight. 

On Saturday evening they met at a dinner-party. 

45 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Blake appeared there because his host was one of the 
men with whom he expected later on to go to Ar- 
menia — a friend of many years’ standing. Certainly 
he would have remained away if it had occurred to 
him that by any possibility he might encounter 
Vittoria Fleming, for he was quite resolute in his 
determination to avoid her — the more resolute since, 
to his angry amazement, she continued to haunt his 
mind, both waking and sleeping. 

He arrived rather late and hurried into the draw- 
ing-room, surreptitiously slipping the card which 
had been given him out of its little envelope, and 
trying to read the name written on it as he went. 

He had not managed to do this, however, by the 
time he reached his hostess, and so held the card in 
his hand while he apologized to her for his tardiness, 
and waited for a later chance. She turned away 
presently to greet another late-comer, but said, over 
her shoulder: 

“ You take in Miss Fleming, don’t you ? There she 
is, behind you.” And the man wheeled about, and 
found himself looking into Vittoria Fleming’s beauti- 
ful face. 

It was as if the week had not been. The amazing 
potency which this girl’s nearness wielded upon him 
seized him afresh like a gripping hand, and he was 
afraid and angry together, as he had been angry for 
the past few days, for he liked to think himself strong 
after the manner of men, not knowing, as women 
know, that weakness is strength too. 

46 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


He managed, however, to pronounce the more or 
less sane platitudes that are appropriate to such 
occasions, and he was conscious that he pronounced 
them quite glibly enough, as he would have done 
through the stress of much greater emotion, and al- 
most at once they went in to dinner. Vittoria said 
very little. She was waiting to see if he would not 
make some explanation of his failure to call — some 
little reference, at least, to that evening of their first 
meeting — some word more intimate than his common- 
place civilities — some little thing to carry them on 
from the point of parting, to show that she was dif- 
ferent to him from these others who smiled and 
chattered and seemed so contentedly at peace with 
the world. But Blake was very busy with his own 
troubles just then, and had no thought beyond them. 
It is probable that up to this time the girl’s side of the 
matter had never occurred to him. As he saw it, 
he was fighting for what he loved best in the world, 
his freedom and his peace of mind, and it was not 
until later that he realized how Vittoria’s peace of 
mind might also have been destroyed by that half- 
hour on the balcony. As men go, he was not a self- 
ish man, and he had proved that many times during 
his life, as a number of people could have testified; 
but just now he was in the first throes of a new 
struggle, and the unexpected strength of the forces 
he had to combat amazed and bewildered him so that 
he was by no means himself. 

He tried to talk to Miss Fleming, but his preoccupa- 
47 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


tion made him inattentive and abrupt — almost 
surly; and after a few minutes of this the girl, keeping 
her eyes down that no one might see the hurt in them, 
turned to the man at her other side and left Blake 
to his gloomy devices. 

It was not a cheerful feast for either of the two, 
and several times their hostess looked down the table 
toward them as they sat turned a little from each 
other, and wondered why they did not get on. She 
was mildly disappointed, because she had asked 
Vittoria, whom she did not know at all well, for the 
especial purpose of interesting Richard Blake. It 
may be mentioned, in passing, that she was an 
Englishwoman, and had lived only a few years in 
New York. 

When at last the ladies had gone, Blake moved up 
at once beside his host, and the two, leaving the other 
men to their own devices, plunged at once into talk 
of their projected expedition. But later, in the 
drawing-room, he had again to face the girl whom 
he had sat beside. They came together by chance 
just before she left the house, and the man, it would 
seem, was moved by some belated scruple to attempt 
a sort of apology for having failed to pay his respects 
at Mrs. Dudley’s home. He explained that he had 
been helping his father get off for the South Pacific, 
but did not explain that that gentleman’s prepara- 
tions for circumnavigating the globe usually con- 
sumed less than half a day. 

“And now that my father is gone,” he said, “I 
48 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


have my own troubles to consider. Hamilton and I 
are off for Asia Minor next month. But I hope to 
give myself the pleasure of coming to see you very 
soon, for all that.” 

The girl contrived to smile politely, and to say 
that she hoped he would manage to come, but that 
in any case they were sure to meet from time to 
time at somebody’s house. And with that they 
parted and went their different ways — Blake morose- 
ly to his club; Vittoria, her head very high and a 
little flush on her cheeks, for she was beginning to 
be angry with herself, to her cousin’s home. 

An older and wiser woman would have realized 
that the man was paying her powers a very high 
compliment by trying to avoid her, and would have 
been pleased or not, according as she valued the 
compliment; but it is the tragedy of youth to be un- 
able in matters of the heart to avail itself of any- 
thing like the reasonable common sense or the 
humor that it applies to the other matters of life. 

Youth pays for its privileges. 

On the second day following this the two met 
again in a strange fashion. Blake had awakened 
on that morning with one of his very rare headaches, 
and, after his fashion, took it into the open air for 
cure. He walked up through the Park by the less- 
frequented paths, and by the time he had passed 
the obelisk and the museum was free of pain and 
tingling pleasantly with revitalized blood. He came, 
49 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


by chance, to a spot near the upper end of the reser- 
voir, and found a foot-bridge reared above the 
bridle-path which closely skirts the water there. 

A stout old gentleman, with a red face and great 
bristling white mustache, rode under him at a can- 
ter. The hard- blowing hack threw up a shower 
of sand behind, but forged ahead hardly faster than 
at a walk — making heavy weather of it, as it were. 
Indeed, the pair had an effect grotesquely nautical — 
a bluff-bowed river tug kicking valiantly behind a 
barge. Blake watched the old gentleman out of 
sight, and laughed. Then, as he was about to go on 
his way, he halted, for his eye caught two mounted fig- 
ures approaching at a quick trot from the south, a man 
and a young woman, and the woman, it seemed to 
him, rode extremely well — well enough to watch. 
The two came near, and they were Vittoria Fleming 
and a young man called Bellingham — Monty Belling- 
ham to those who knew him. 

Blake, above on the foot-bridge, gave an exclama- 
tion of surprise and then of distaste, for he cordially 
disliked Mr. Bellingham and all his kind, and it 
seemed to him a pity that this young girl should be 
riding in the Park, or, indeed, having anything to do 
with the Bellingham sort of person. It was not that 
the man could be called a monster of sin or of any- 
thing else. Most houses were open to him, and 
certainly he was popular among women. But the 
better sort of men avoided his company, and a man 
who is disliked by his fellow-men will bear watching. 
50 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Bellingham represented a type which is familiar in 
all the great capitals of the world, the well-dressed 
and well-mannered youth of fairly assured position 
who can be convicted of breaking no important 
social laws, but who is trusted by few people — and 
then only once: his instincts are, as a rule, furtively 
predatory. 

It occurred to Blake that the two might have met 
by chance rather than by design, and he looked be- 
hind to see if Miss Fleming’s groom might not be 
following. But there was no groom to be seen. In 
point of fact, however, he learned, a long while after 
this, that the meeting had been accidental, and that 
Vittoria’s groom was waiting at the Park gate. 

The two riders passed under the bridge and on to 
the north, where shortly the path is lost to view. 
Blake noted, frowning, that the man’s horse was 
very fresh and hardly in hand, and that Vittoria 
was laughing at his struggles with it. She looked 
exceedingly well in her close-fitting habit, and rode 
as she had danced — naturally, without consciousness 
of effort. 

He watched them as they swung out of sight among 
the trees, and stood a little longer scowling absently 
at the spot where they had disappeared. Then, as 
he was turning to go on, he thought he heard the 
girl’s voice again, as if they were coming back by 
the way they had gone, and, indeed, after a moment 
the two once more broke into view. Miss Fleming 
was some little distance ahead, and young Belling- 
* 5 1 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


ham hung back, fighting with his mount. What 
followed came very much more swiftly than it can 
be told. The man must completely have lost his 
temper and with it his reason, for Blake saw him 
raise his crop and strike the horse with it — a side 
blow, across the head. Of course, the animal prompt- 
ly reared, plunged once, took the bit, and bolted 
straight forward at a tremendous pace. 

Miss Fleming, checking her mare to allow the 
other to come up, hung diagonally across the path, 
and Bellingham’s maddened beast caromed full into 
her, swept the lighter animal aside, and was off like 
a whirlwind. 

Blake saw that the girl was unseated and clinging 
half-way to the ground, saw the mare begin to rise in 
a first rearing plunge; then he leaped the low para- 
pet of the foot-bridge, hung for an instant by his 
hands, and dropped into the soft sand of the bridle- 
path. When he reached the mare’s head she was 
plunging madly, and Vittoria was being dragged by 
the stirrup. She had had the sense to fold her arms 
round her head and face, but it seemed impossible 
that she would not be kicked or trampled. Blake 
threw his weight upon the bridle, holding close by 
the bits. The mare was still for a moment, and he 
saw the girl’s foot drop from its hold and saw her 
roll clear. Then the frightened beast reared again, 
struck out at him, and broke away. He let it go, 
and ran to the dusty, huddled heap which lay still in 
the path. 


52 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


She said: 

“Pm not hurt! Truly, Pm not hurt!” as he took 
her in his arms and carried her to the turf by the 
roadside. 

“The sand was soft,” she said. “Pm not hurt 
anywhere — only — shaken — a little.” Then she saw 
his face and knew him, and gave a great sobbing 
cry which might have been pain or might have been 
joy. But it had a sound of joy. Blake bent close 
over her, and his face was very white and hard. 

“You’re not hurt?” he demanded, in a sharp 
whisper. It was as if he could not speak aloud. 
“You’re sure you are not hurt — anywhere?” And 
looking up to him, from where she lay on the green 
turf, she shook her head in answer. 

Immediately after a very violent shock, people 
almost always say foolish and childish things. Vit- 
toria asked, gravely: 

“How did you know I was — going to fall off- 
just here ?” And Blake, without a smile, answered 
her: 

“I thought you might. I thought you might.” 
But after that neither of them seemed to think of 
anything more to say. The girl, it would seem, had 
not yet had time to wonder how he came to be 
there — beyond her insane question as to how he 
knew where she was going to fall off. She accepted 
him, without comment, as sent by Heaven. And 
so, presently, Blake began to brush the dust from 
her skirt with his hands, and she raised herself a 
53 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

little and tried to help him, but sank back again, 
very white. 

The man judged rightly that she was faint, and 
rose to his feet wondering how he could manage to 
fetch water to her. But at that moment Providence, 
in the person of two laborers, passed along the way. 
One of the men was in the act of restoring a flat, 
round bottle to his inner pocket, and the two, when 
they saw the girl, in her dust-smeared habit, lying 
by the roadside, stopped, and began to stare. Blake 
went down to them. 

“This lady has had a bad fall from her horse,” 
said he, “and I think she is a bit faint. Would you 
mind lending me your flask ?” 

The laboring man pulled it out of his pocket and 
proffered it heartily, saying: 

“Sure! Sure! Take all you want, and the lady 
too.” They followed him back across the bridle- 
path, and stood looking on curiously while he made 
Vittoria drink a few sips of the very bad whiskey. 
She made a face over it, and the man to whom the 
flask belonged laughed, and said: 

“Don’t you care, miss! It ’ll do you good, no 
matter if it ain’t champagne.” Then, after hanging 
near for an undecided moment or two, they went 
on, and the two were left alone. 

Vittoria could sit up now without discomfort, and 
between them they managed to brush her fairly free 
of sand and dust. But when they had done that, 
she turned and looked up at him. 

54 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

“You couldn’t avoid me this time, could you?” 
she said, and she smiled a little as if she would give 
the words an effect of lightness. But they were not 
light. 

“Avoid you?” said he. “I don’t — ” 

“You wouldn’t come,” she said. “You never 
came, so I had to come to you — in this brazen 
fashion, too!” She was still smiling, but the man 
stared mirthless. It was as if she had suddenly 
pulled aside the shrouding curtains and let him see 
into a room. He gave an exclamation that was a 
sort of cry, but the girl could not know what the 
cry meant, for at that moment there came the scurry- 
ing beat of horses’ hoofs, and young Bellingham, 
his face still red and angry from his struggles, rode 
up, and with him a mounted Park policeman, who 
led Vittoria’s mare. 

Bellingham emitted a shout of astonishment at 
the sight of the other man, and demanded to know 
how the deuce he happened to be there. 

“ I was walking near by,” said Blake, “ and saw Miss 
Fleming thrown. So I came and brushed her off.” 

“He came and saved my life,” said Vittoria, sharp- 
ly. “I was being dragged.” 

Young Bellingham, conscious of his very unheroic 
role, stammered something congratulatory, and be- 
gan to rail at the brute which had bolted with him — 
a new horse, it appeared, out of the stable for the 
first time since its purchase. 

Blake turned away from this babble to the girl. 

55 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“You mustn’t try to ride back,” he said. “You’re 
not fit. You’ve had a bad shaking up. You must 
let me send this officer for a cab. Mr. Bellingham 
can lead your mare to the stable.” But she laughed 
at him, insisting that she could ride for the remainder 
of the day if necessary without feeling any the worse 
for it, and Bellingham pressed up to them, staring 
curiously. 

“I don’t see but she looks all right,” he broke in. 
“She’s not bruised or anything. Why shouldn’t 
she ride ?” 

“Monty, don’t be an ass!” said Blake, angrily. 
“I tell you Miss Fleming has had a nasty fall, and 
she’s not fit to ride.” He asked the officer if he 
would go for a cab, but Vittoria called the man back 
and insisted upon being put up on the now subdued 
and quiet mare. Young Bellingham laughed in 
Blake’s face and swung himself into the saddle. 
He said, chuckling: 

“ Foiled — eh, what ?” But Blake turned aside as 
if the other had not been there, and went to where 
Vittoria sat waiting. 

“I’m sorry for trying to interfere,” said he. 
“Doubtless you know best, but I think you’d have 
been wiser to go home in a cab.” The girl shook 
her head, smiling. 

“I’m quite all right,” she said. “Not in the 
least hurt — and I hate being fussed over.” 

Blake dropped his eyes and stepped back, but she 
put out her hand to him quickly, saying: 

56 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Oh, please! please! I didn’t mean that — not in 
the way it sounded. Truly! Please forgive me. 
I’m not ungrateful.” And when he looked up again, 
she said: 

“Will you come to see me — now ?” And her face 
was very grave. 

Blake bowed slightly, for he was foolish enough to 
have been a little hurt by her thoughtless words. 
He said: 

“I shall hope to give myself that pleasure.” And 
then the two rode off down the bridle-path, and he 
stood looking after them. 

The Park policeman nodded his head, en con- 
noisseur. 

“That there lady can ride,” he said. “Look at 
her now! It must ’a’ taken something to spill her 
off.” He slapped his pocket and grinned. 

“The genTeman, he’s a good sport too,” he con- 
fided. “He give me ten dollars for stopping his 
horse and catching the lady’s mare.” 

“That ten dollars,” said Blake, morosely, “was 
for stopping his own horse. This ten dollars is for 
the lady’s.” The Park policeman grinned again, and 
said: 

“Thankee, sir! I’m playing in luck to-day.” He 
swung up to the saddle and rode off, and presently 
Blake went away, also up toward the foot-bridge, 
where he had dropped his stick before making that 
leap into the bridle-path. 

He honestly meant to present himself that after- 
57 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


noon at Mrs. Dudley’s, but shortly before five a mes- 
sage came from an elderly aunt of his — his sole liv- 
ing relation, with the exception of his father — asking 
him to come to her house immediately upon a matter 
of importance, so that it was after half-past six when 
he reached his final destination, and the man at the 
door said the ladies had gone up to dress. Blake 
asked if Miss Fleming had suffered any ill effects 
from her fall, was told that she had not, and so went 
home. 

And on the next morning he had to go out of town 
for several days. 

But when Vittoria, midway through with her dress- 
ing, was informed of his call and inquiry, she halted 
in what she was doing and looked for a long time 
into the glass before her. Her hands were clinched 
hard and her lips tight set. 

“He did it on purpose!” she said, in an angry whis- 
per. “ He came late, when he knew we’d be dressing, 
on purpose — so that he wouldn’t see me. Well . . . 
that’s done with!” 

She beat one small hand upon the dressing-table 
before her. 

“That’s over and done with! I think we shall 
manage to get on without Mr. Richard Blake. . . . 
There seems to be a number of other people in the 
world.” 


V 

RICHARD BLAKE’S EYES ARE OPENED 


OUNG BLAKE, when in town, was in the 



1 habit of dropping in at least once a week, and 
sometimes oftener, at the Harry Farings. He had 
known Faring for a good many years — indeed, the 
two had once made an exploring expedition together 
in Guatemala — and he had known Faring’ s beautiful 
wife in the days of her first marriage, when she was 
very unhappy indeed. So he was on rather an in- 
timate footing in the house, and liked to go there. 
He said that the sight of two people as completely 
happy and as absolutely absorbed in each other as 
these two were could always restore his confidence in 
human nature, however badly it might have been 
damaged. 

On this particular day he went rather early, hoping 
to find Beatrix Faring alone, but to his disappoint- 
ment he found her talking to that grim and rather 
terrible old lady whom her friends called Aunt 
Arabella Crowley, though she was really nobody’s 
aunt at all. Mrs. Crowley gave him a brief nod, and 
went on with what she had been saying as if he were 
not in the room. She said to Beatrix Faring: 


59 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Well, on the whole, I dare say it’s a good thing 
she is going back. Heaven knows what she might 
not do next. Nothing would astonish me.” The 
old lady paused there, but, after the pause, she said : 

“You didn’t know her mother, of course. I did. 
This girl is astonishingly like her — something odd 
about them both — the foreign blood, doubtless.” 

Mrs. Faring turned to Blake and explained. 

“We were talking about Catharine Dudley’s 
cousin,” she said — “the new beauty, Vittoria Flem- 
ing. Have you met her? Ah, yes, of course you 
have. Of course! I remember. She has been here 
this afternoon. She left not ten minutes before you 
came in.” 

Blake said, oh yes, he had met Miss Fleming, and 
just them Aunt Arabella Crowley turned to him with 
a sudden exclamation. She said: 

“Oh! You are Richard Blake, are you not? I 
only half heard the name. Richard Blake! Bless 
my soul, now, that’s very odd!” She stared at the 
young man with an intensity of gaze that seemed to 
have something like excitement in it, and once more, 
after a little, she said, God bless her soul, it was very 
odd. Blake wondered vaguely what was odd; but 
as Mrs. Crowley seemed disinclined to explain, and 
only stared at him in that intimidating fashion, he 
merely said, “Yes,” and Beatrix Faring came to 
his rescue with a question as to his recent where- 
abouts. 

Aunt Arabella took her departure shortly after 
60 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


that. She had said very little more, and seemed 
thoughtful and silent beyond her wont. At the door, 
which Blake opened for her, she faced him abruptly, 
and said, in her drill-sergeant’s tone: 

“Come and see me, if you’d care to. I live in 
Gramercy Park.” She went away while he was 
thanking her, and he turned back across the room 
to his hostess. They both laughed a little, and 
Blake said: 

“What a dreadful old woman!” 

“You seem to have won her heart in some mys- 
terious fashion,” Beatrix Faring said. “Aunt Ara- 
bella very seldom asks young men to call on her. 
Go and see her, if you can. She’s really a very sweet 
old soul among her friends. The Carterets adore her, 
you know, and so do Harry and I. Will you have 
some tea, or do you want what Harry calls a ‘real 
one ’ ? Ring, if it’s the latter.” 

Blake said he would have tea if he might, and 
sat down near by. 

“It’s rather odd,” he said, “your happening to 
speak of Miss Fleming, and her having been here 
to-day. I was meaning to go on presently to the 
Dudley’s. I’ve been trying to call there for a long 
time, but something always got in the way.” 

Mrs. Faring shook her head. 

“Well, you’re too late now. She’s by this time 
on a train bound for Connecticut. She and Catha- 
rine popped in here for just a moment on their way 
to the station. Vittoria is going back home, and I 
61 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


expect — ” Mrs. Faring stopped short in the middle 
of her sentence, because she became aware that the 
man before her was regarding her with a curiously 
blank stare, and she even thought that he had turned 
pale, though men seldom perform that feat. She 
said, quickly: 

“What is it? What is the matter with you ?” 
And at the change in her tone Richard Blake re- 
covered himself with a start, as people do who have 
been absent in mind. 

“Are you unwell?” Beatrix Faring persisted. § “I 
never saw you look like that before. You frightened 
me.” 

The man took a long breath, and after it laughed 
a little, but it was not a very mirthful laugh. He 
seemed to hesitate a long while before speaking, 
and his hostess made no attempt to help him out — 
only waited in silence. But at last he said: 

“You’re about the only human being, Beatrix, 
that I ever tell things to, or look to for — well, under- 
standing. I’m afraid that girl’s return home — I’m 
afraid, you know, it’s rather a facer for me.” 

Mrs. Faring gave a low exclamation of surprise, 
and, after a moment, she said: 

“I didn’t know. I never knew.” 

“Well, I didn’t know, either,” said he. — “Yes, I 
did! I take that back. That’s not true. I knew 
from the very beginning, but I wouldn’t confess it 
even to myself. I fought it with all the strength I 
had. I wanted to remain free. To fall in love was 
62 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


the very last thing in the world I had expected or 
wished to do. I can’t explain to you how I’ve al- 
ways prized my freedom. It’s hard for women to 
understand a feeling like that. Well, I knew in the 
very beginning that if I wanted to keep my head 
I’d have to stop away from Vittoria Fleming, and 
so I did it by every possible means, civil or rude. I 
avoided her as if she’d been a disease. I think I’ve 
seen her in all just three times — once at a ball, once 
at dinner, and once riding in the Park. But those 
three times seem to have been three too many. ... I 
don’t know what I’ve been expecting to come of it — 
for I meant to call there to-day. It was a promise — 
I think I haven’t expected anything at all. Now 
that she’s gone — I know, at last. Now I know.” 

He leaned forward in his chair, staring at the 
Sehna rug at his feet, and his hands clasped and un- 
clasped slowly between his knees. A single vertical 
vein in the middle of his forehead began to stand 
out prominently, as if it were congested. The 
woman looked across at him with compassion, be- 
cause she was fond of him, and it hurt her to see 
him hurt. 

“Have you any reason,” she began, gently — “any 
ground for thinking that she— Vittoria— that she 
cares, too ? Have you any reason for believing that ?” 

Blake shook his head without looking up, and 
said: 

“No! Certainly not!” But then, as once before, 
he caught himself up, saying: 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“I don’t know. Perhaps that is not quite true. 
I have no definite reason. That’s certain, but — it’s 
a matter of feeling — fancy. I think — I did think, 
perhaps. Well, I may have thought very foolish 
things, and doubtless I was wrong. I have no real 
and definite reason for believing that Vittoria Flem- 
ing ever cared a hang for me. She has a manner 
that is more direct, more intimate, perhaps, than 
girls usually have. Doubtless she has it for every 
one she meets. . . . And still — ” he said, looking 
down once more upon the rug at his feet. “And 
still — Well, that’s over! That’s over and done 
with!” Oddly enough, he used the very words 
Vittoria had used ten days before. But Mrs. Far- 
ing made an exclamation of protest. 

“Nonsense! Of course it’s not over or done 
with. Have you no more enterprise or courage than 
that ? Do you mean to say that you’re going to let 
a distance of seventy-five miles separate you forever 
from a girl you love — especially when you think she 
cares back ? It’s incredible.” 

“Under ordinary circumstances,” said he, “it 
would be absurd — incredible, as you say, but I feel 
rather oddly about it, rather fatalistic. It sounds 
over-fanciful, perhaps, and Heaven knows I’m not 
a fanciful man, but I think I was going there to-day 
rather as one makes a throw at dice. I had a feeling 
that to-day the whole thing was to decide itself, one 
way or the other. That’s outright fatalism, isn’t it ? 
But that’s how I felt. Well, you see, she has de- 
64 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


cided it herself— or Fate has, or something. She 
has gone beyond my reach.” 

Mrs. Faring frowned across at him in high disap- 
proval. 

“You talk like a silly girl/’ said she, “and I’m 
ashamed of you. If being in love has turned you 
into this sort of person, I’m glad you were never in 
love before. ‘ Fate,’ indeed! That’s nonsense.” 

Blake did not answer, only smiled and shook his 
head, and, in the little pause that followed, Beatrix 
Faring may have had time to reflect how large a part 
Fate, or something very like it, had played in her own 
romantic life, for the frown went away from her 
brows, and when she spoke again her voice was 
gentler. She said : 

“ I don’t mean to be violent, but if you love that 
beautiful girl I should hate to see you lose her un- 
necessarily.” 

“Well,” he pointed out, “I can’t reasonably follow 
her to a country-house where she lives alone with a 
sour and morose father, can I ? I’m on no such 
footing with her as that. Indeed, I’m, properly 
- speaking, on no footing at all, for I have never called 
at the Dudleys. I’ve never even made a first call. 
For all I know, Miss Fleming may have forgotten 
my very existence. Don’t you see ?” 

“Yes,” said Beatrix Faring, thoughtfully. “Yes, 
I see. Of course.” She gave a sudden laugh of 
pure astonishment, and Blake stared at her. 

“It is the most extraordinary thing!” she cried. 

65 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“The most incredible thing! I believe you’re right, 
after all, about trusting in Fate. Only Fate is work- 
ing for you, and not, as you thought, against. I have 
only this very moment thought of something that I 
meant to tell you when you first came. It was in my 
mind when Aunt Arabella was here — indeed, she and 
I were discussing it; but then we began to talk about 
Vittoria, and I forgot. Harry has taken for the sum- 
mer — only we’re going abroad in July — a big old 
house in Connecticut that the Lees own; those 
Arthur Lees, you know. It’s a country-house that 
has been in the Lee family for ages. Harry wants 
to be very, very quiet, for two months to finish a long, 
dull monograph on that South American mountain 
he climbed last year. He has promised it to some 
society, and they’re to give him a lot of letters to put 
after his name. He didn’t know where to go to do 
it, and the Lees said, why not go to this place of theirs ? 
They haven’t lived in it for years, but it has been kept 
in good condition by the caretakers. Well, here’s 
the point. This house is only a few miles — two or 
three, I think — from the Fleming place. Vittoria 
and I talked about it only the other day, and she 
seemed to be immensely pleased at the prospect of 
some neighbors to play with. It’s very dull for the 
poor child. Do you see ? You’re to visit us there, 
and have all the opportunity you want for stalking 
the lady. What could be better?” 

“Nothing could be better,” said Blake. “It’s 
ideal. The only trouble with it is that I can’t come. 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


I’m off in a fortnight, or thereabouts, for Armenia. 
Harrison Forbes and Willie Strong and two or three 
others are going. I can’t very well withdraw at this 
late hour.” 

Nevertheless, Mrs. Faring saw that his cheeks were 
flushed, and that there was a light of excitement in 
the eyes that he turned away from hers. Protests 
clamored upon the tip of her tongue, incredulous 
scorn at the man’s lack of enterprise, but she was 
wise, and checked herself before she had spoken. 
She was shrewdly aware that within himself argu- 
ments more potent than any she could voice were 
at work and would go on working. 

And, besides, although, like most very happily 
married women, she was by instinct a matchmaker, 
she did not wish to act too boldly here. Each of 
them had spoken of Fate as having a hand in the 
relations of Richard Blake and Vittoria Fleming, 
but there are good fates and evil ones. Mrs. Faring 
reflected upon that, and held her tongue. She said 
only: 

“I’ll leave it with you to think over. My invita- 
tion holds good for any time or for all the time that we 
may be in Connecticut. Come to us if you want to. 
We shall go down, I think, in a week or ten days. 
Harry is impatient to be at his work.” 

Blake shook his head once more with a little smile, 
but he did not speak, and there came between the 
two a brief silence. It was Mrs. Faring who broke 
it at last. She had really determined to leave the 
6 67 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


matter, in so far as it involved a decision, entirely 
in Blake’s hands, but she was too womanlike to be 
able to resist a small, mischievous prod of the goad. 
She said, reflectively: 

“I wonder just how many young men in New 
York will put crepe on their hats to-morrow, when 
they learn that Vittoria has gone home. I dare say 
there’ll be rather a regiment of them.” 

Blake looked up with a not very joyous “Oh !” 
and she laughed a little, inwardly, saying: 

“Oh, she has had no lack of — ‘suitors,’ as Jimmy 
Rogers calls them. You may be sure of that. 
Jimmy Rogers himself was among the first — that 
will have been long before you met her; but then he 
is always breaking his heart about somebody, so he 
doesn’t count. The poor little Sailes boy counts, 
though, and Chalmers le Clair, and your friend, 
Harrison Forbes, and the Brooks twins. They all 
wanted to die for her — a long procession of them. 
And a lot of those horrid older men! It must have 
given’ poor Catharine Dudley some sleepless nights, 
I should think.” 

Blake said “Oh !” again rather blankly, for this 
was all news to him, though it was far from surprising 
news. He reflected, unhappily, that he really knew 
almost nothing of Vittoria’s social career during the 
season just ended, for he had been going out very lit- 
tle altogether, and then seldom in the debutante class. 

“Oh, I’ve no doubt,” he said, “that Miss Fleming 
was a great success. She’d be a success anywhere, 
68 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Im sure. She is very beautiful and very charming. 
And she’s — different, somehow.” 

“Yes,” said his hostess, nodding slowly, as if she 
were giving careful thought to what he had said. 
“Yes, she’s very different. She’s not much like the 
other girls here. I think they felt that, and — perhaps 
made it a little hard for her: some of them, that is; 
not all, by any means. Doubtless jealousy had a 
great deal to do with it, and then they felt her to be 
in a way an outsider, a stranger. It is hard, of course, 
to have a — what do you call it? — a ‘dark horse’ 
come in and win the race, you know. And Vittoria 
won the race easily, this year. She was the hit of the 
season. . . . Yes, she’s different. It’s a matter of 
temperament. I don’t pretend to understand her 
altogether, but I’ve grown fonder of her in these few 
months than of any girl I ever knew. She has — so 
much to give, and she gives it so splendidly! . . . 
She demands a good deal, too, of course. You’ll 
have seen that — I don’t mean from her friends, but 
of the world, of life. She’s so tragically eager for 
happiness that she often frightens me — too eager. 
Think how badly she might let life hurt her. I sup- 
pose it all comes from having lived alone, in a sort of 
tomb, for so very long.” 

“I think it comes from something deeper than 
that,” Blake said. “I think it comes from in- 
side. It’s temperamental.” And Mrs. Faring said: 

“Yes, I dare say you’re right.” She broke into 
a sudden laugh. 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Poor Catharine Dudley! The child has been a 
handful for her! Always in scrapes of some kind, 
and for the past ten days — Heaven knows what got 
into her! — she has behaved like a lunatic at large. 
Aunt Arabella and I were discussing some of her 
goings-on before you arrived to-day. Then, too, 
Monty Bellingham has been trailing her about, and 
that must have worried Catharine Dudley.” 

“Monty Bellingham is a rotten little bounder!” 
said Blake, angrily. “I’m not sure one couldn’t 
go further and say that he’s a cad. Mrs. Dudley 
must have been insane to let that girl see him.” 

“I don’t think Catharine had much to do with it,” 
Beatrix Faring said. “I fancy Vittoria managed 
that, on her own. And, after all, I suppose he is 
amusing — at least, Vittoria says he is.” 

She thought Blake had been sufficiently harassed 
by this time, and so changed the subject as deftly as 
she could, but the man reverted to it once or twice, 
and was quite plainly in a very ill-humor. When he 
found that his hostess was determined to talk no 
more about Vittoria Fleming, he got up to take his 
leave, but, half-way out of the room, turned back 
with a new thought. He said: 

“What do you suppose old Mrs. Crowley meant by 
going into that fit of astonishment over my name ? 
She’d been talking to you about Miss Fleming, then 
it suddenly occurred to her who I was. She seemed 
to connect the two of us in some fashion. She said 
it was very odd, and went away quite excited.” 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Beatrix Faring shook her head. 

“I don’t know,” said she. “I noticed that, too, 
and meant to speak to you of it. What was she say- 
ing just before ? Oh ! something about Vittoria’s 
mother. Well, you never knew Vittoria’s mother, 
did you ?” 

“ Never even heard of her,” said he. And Mrs. 
Faring said: 

“No, of course not. She must have died when the 
girl was a baby. I can’t think what Aunt Arabella 
meant, but I’m sure that it had something to do with 
Vittoria’s mother.” 


VI 


INTRODUCING MESSRS. TEMPLE AND FLEMING 

M R. BEAUMONT TEMPLE has sometimes 
been called “the novelist of the chosen few,” 
and there can be no doubt that the solid and pro- 
found volumes which he gives to the world, one each 
second year, are read by the chosen few if they are 
read by anybody. The larger public which demands 
amusement in its fiction passes them respectfully 
by, and so it is a very good thing that Mr. Temple 
does not depend upon the practice of his art for a 
livelihood. He was, at the time with which this 
veracious chronicle has to do, three or four and 
forty, and he did not look at all as one might imagine 
the “novelist of the chosen few” to look. He was a 
square, ruddy man, with close-cut yellow hair which 
was beginning to be sparse, with blue eyes which 
twinkled upon occasion, and with a waist-line which 
only constant and indefatigable effort was able to 
keep within proper limits. Thi : is not at all to say 
that he was stout, for he was not; but stoutness lay 
in wait for his old age, and Temple was resentfully 
aware of it. 

He had a country-house in Connecticut not far 
72 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


from Mickleford and within two miles of Standish, 
the Fleming place. He had lived there more or less 
constantly for twenty years, but his youth and early 
manhdod had been passed abroad, and it was a 
stormy and romantic youth of which the “chosen 
few” knew nothing whatever. There was the white 
scar of a sabre cut low down on one of Mr. Temple’s 
cheeks, and one or two people knew that the man 
bore other scars also from this early period; but they 
were inner scars, and he never showed them. He 
never even suggested their existence, for he was the 
cheerfulest of all men, with wholesome out-of-door 
tastes. He shot and fished in the proper seasons, 
and he rode regularly each day (with his thoughts 
upon that dangerous waist- line), he played tennis 
with Vittoria Fleming (and was invariably beaten), 
and occasionally he accepted an invitation to West- 
chester or to Long Island for a day’s hunting. In 
a general summing up, however, his two chief in- 
terests might be said to be the practice of his pro- 
fession and Miss Vittoria Fleming. 

When that young lady reached Mickleford on her 
homeward journey she found a trap ready to take 
her the mile-and-a-bit from the village to Standish, 
and, greatly to her surprise, she found Beaumont 
Temple also. He had come in the trap, but he was 
in riding- clothes, and she guessed rightly that he 
had ridden over to Standish from his own place and 
so had been sent to the station by her father. 

The girl’s first thought when she saw him standing 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


there on the platform was that her father was ill, and 
that Temple had come to break the news to her. 
But Temple laughed at the idea. 

“Pender’s right as a trivet,” he said. “Nothing 
wrong with him but an ingrowing bad disposition. I 
happened to be at Standish, and he asked me if I’d 
like to come and meet your train. In consequence, 
behold me!” He took her two slim hands in his 
big ones and pumped them up and down, beaming 
upon her in the absurd elder-brother fashion that he 
chose at times to assume. 

“Oh, Miss Vittoria Fleming,” he mourned, dolor- 
ously, “you certainly have grown up! I knew you 
would. I looked forward to it, but — I take it un- 
friendly of you. You’ve grown up, and now we can’t 
play any more.” 

“Don’t be silly, Beau!” the girl cried. “I’ve done 
nothing of the sort. Are we going to stand here 
holding hands all the afternoon ? The people in the 
car windows enjoy it, and so do I, but let’s be going.” 

Temple sighed profoundly, put her into the waiting 
trap, gave the necessary orders about her luggage, 
and climbed to the seat beside her. She asked him 
once more rather anxiously about her father, as they 
set off. 

“His last letter to me sounded very unlike him,” 
she said — “as if he were ill or worried. You’re 
quite sure, Beau, that nothing’s wrong ?” 

“I’m sure of nothing,” said the man, “except that 
I’m uncommon glad to see the sun and moon and 
74 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

stars back at Standish once more. But, as to Pender, 
I think he’s much as usual. Surely you didn’t ex- 
pect him to come to the station to meet you !” 

On the surface of it there seems nothing astonish- 
ing in a father taking the trouble to go a mile over 
good roads to meet his returning daughter after a 
separation of five months, but Vittoria laughed, as 
at an absurdity. 

“Well, no,” she admitted. “No, hardly that.” 

“That wouldn’t be in the least playing up to 
Pender’s pose,” said Temple. He did not speak 
offensively, but as if in a sort of gentle and tolerant 
mockery of a very old friend. 

“Pender must be the ‘heavy’ old man, with a 
strong touch of eccentricity, or he won’t play. He’ll 
take his doll and go home. I’ve got on with him 
all these long years only by accepting him in his role 
without question and without mirth. And for that 
matter, my dear, so have you.” 

The girl laughed in spite of herself, but she put 
her hand on the man’s arm as if to check him. 

“Don’t, Beau!” she said. “Really you mustn’t. 
I know you’re the one person in the world who’s 
allowed to say anything about anybody, but you 
mustn’t abuse poor father. He doesn’t pose at all.” 

“Oh, doesn’t he, though?” cried Temple. “He 
has posed so long that he wouldn’t recognize him- 
self — the real self — if the two should meet in the 
street. I’m not abusing him, angel child. I’m 
admiring him. He’s a very finished artist.” 

75 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Do you mean to say/’ she demanded, “that 
father is a hypocrite ? Do you mean to say that my 
mother’s death didn’t absolutely crush him and 
make him — what he has always been since then ?” 
The man’s face became grave. 

“Well, no,” said he. “No. I don’t go as far as 
that. Without doubt it broke him terribly. But 
— well, you know I’ve never forgiven him for caging 
you up here all your life — though, Heaven knows, I’ve 
been the gainer by it. If Pender hadn’t coddled his 
grief and admired himself in it so profoundly you 
might have been having a much better time. He has 
no occupation to bother with. Why hasn’t he been 
taking you about the world all these twenty years, 
and showing you beautiful things and having you 
meet beautiful people ? That’s what I can’t forgive 
him.” 

The girl turned and looked curiously into Temple’s 
face; for he had been speaking in earnest, and with 
more feeling than she had almost ever heard from 
him. 

“Why, Beau dear!” she said, “I didn’t know 
you’d ever thought of that. I never did myself. 
Father is — well, he’s father. It never occurred to 
me that he could do that.” 

“It never occurred to him, either,” said Temple, 
shortly. But again she laid her hand on his arm. 

“So serious!” she mocked. “And on my very 
return, too! Let’s don’t blackguard father any more. 
Really, you know, I think he’s very fond of me — in 
76 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


his undemonstrative fashion.” And the man raised 
his eyebrows slightly. 

“So you’ve discovered that, have you?” said he. 
“It’s a wonder, for Pender hides it well. I’ll tell 
you a secret. He is fond of you. But he’d almost 
rather die than admit it. Ah well ! we’ll drop Pender. 
I expect I’m rather a brute to bedevil him to your 
very face, but I’m in a bad humor to-day. . . . Have 
you had a good time these five months ?” 

“Beautiful, Beau!” she cried. “Oh, beautiful! 
They were all so nice to me, all those lovely people, 
my cousin and all the rest! I’ve hardly slept for 
months. I didn’t know there was so much fun in 
the world — balls and dinner-parties and the opera. 
Oh, Beau dear, the opera! Why did you never tell 
me how wonderful it is ? And the other girls who 
came out this year, they were nice, too — some of them 
adorable; but do you know — somehow — I don’t 
think I like girls as well as other people. Some of 
them were — well, just the least bit catty, you know. 
I think I like men better.” 

She said that with the air of one who makes a pro- 
found discovery of great importance, and Temple 
roared with laughter. But the girl swept on. “And, 
Beau, fancy! I’ve found something that I’ve been 
wanting so long — so long!” 

Temple looked at her sharply. 

“What?” he asked, in a quick tone. 

“A mother, Beau,” said she. “My mother! My 
own beautiful mother! Mrs. Dudley told me about 
77 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


her. How sweet and lovely she was. Ah, you don’t 
know how I’ve always wanted my mother!” 

Temple bent his head. 

“She was all that is beautiful and kind and sweet!” 
said he. “I have often wished that I might talk to 
you about her, but your father forbade it.” 

“He must have loved her very, very dearly,” said 
Vittoria, in a low voice. And, after a bit, the man 
said: 

“Yes, he did — in his way.” 

They came to the tall gates of Standish, and turned 
into the long drive which, between rows of lilac and 
laburnum, wound up to the house on the hill. 

“ I wonder if father will be looking out for me ?” 
Vittoria asked. 

“He will,” said the man, “secretly, between half- 
opened shutters; but when you reach the house you 
will find him, as usual, in his study, and he will be 
somewhat surprised and a little annoyed at seeing 
you. He’ll give you a gloomy sketch of a kiss on one 
ear, and the household of Standish will have resumed 
its ancient calm. I’m going to put Pender in a book. 
He’s unique.” 

Temple was in part right, but only in part. Cer- 
tainly, as the trap swung round the final curve of the 
driveway, a shutter in the front of the house clicked 
with some distinctness. Certainly, also, Fleming 
was not at the door to welcome his daughter, and 
Vittoria, after greeting the ancient butler who took 
her down from the trap, was shown to her father’s 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


study, a great square room, book-lined and full of 
shadows, looking to the north, so that it never had the 
genial sun. Pender Fleming awaited her there. 
He was not, as usual, seated in his big desk-chair, 
bent darkly over a book. He stood in the middle of 
the room leaning against the table there, a stout man 
with a great pallid face and a slow, unwieldy body. 
He had a very high and hairless brow, and his eyes, 
like his face, were pale, but, unlike most pale eyes, they 
were deep-set, and had always a haggard and cavern- 
ous look, as if the man slept ill. His lower lip pro- 
truded a little, and when he was displeased or was 
immersed in gloomy thought he out-thrust it still 
more. It was an unprepossessing habit, but then he 
was an unprepossessing man. Yellowish-white hair 
grew at the back and sides of his head, and he wore 
a sparse and straggling whisker in the early Victorian 
style. 

Vittoria halted just inside the door, for she was 
never quite at ease with her father, and she was a 
little embarrassed now, not knowing how to approach 
him. He had seldom encouraged demonstrations of 
affection. So, for a moment, the two paused facing 
each other, and the man who wrote novels stood 
apart and watched with an alert interest that had 
something professional about it. 

He had expressed himself regarding this man to 
the man’s daughter with more freedom than he had 
intended, albeit he had maintained throughout a tone 
of half banter, but the words he had used had but 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


palely expressed his real feeling in the matter. He 
distrusted and despised Pender Fleming, and yet he 
saw rather a great deal of him, partly because the 
man really interested him more than almost any one 
he had ever known, and partly for another reason not 
unconnected with Vittoria. 

Fleming’s pale face began to work strangely. He 
wetted his lips, and it seemed that he was trying to 
speak, but no sound came. After a moment he 
raised one hand in an odd, stiff gesture, and the hand 
wavered out toward the girl, who stood waiting. At 
last he said: 

“Come — child!” and Vittoria ran to him, and took 
his face between her hands and kissed him on both 
cheeks. 

The man who stood apart watched with keen in- 
terest, and he saw Pender Fleming’s face twist again 
above the girl’s head, and a single tear gleam and drop. 
He saw the man’s arms rise again stiffly, and his 
hands make as if they would stroke the girl’s hair, 
but drop again as if they did not know how. And 
Temple nodded to himself with an appearance of 
satisfaction. Indeed, in a fashion, he was satisfied, 
or at least his judgment was, for he had long had a 
theory that the grim and silent and bitter old man 
cherished under his forbidding exterior a secret 
passion of tenderness, a great love — or as great a love 
as he was capable of — for this young girl, who recalled 
to him the joy and the anguish, the splendor and the 
agony, of a deep-buried past. 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Fleming released his daughter and moved a step 
back from her, as if he feared that she might feel 
tempted to renew her caress. He said: 

“ There! There! I am glad you’re at home again, 
child.” And something doubtless meant for a smile 
appeared for a brief instant upon the vast pallidity of 
his still face. 

Vittoria turned with a little laugh to the other man. 

“You see, father was glad to see me!” she said, and 
she spoke a bit nervously, as if half afraid of her little 
jest. 

“Yes,” said Temple. “Yes. But he’s ashamed 
of it already. He’ll see that it never occurs again.” 
The novelist was a privileged person in that house. 
He spoke as he chose, and his speeches were some- 
times appalling; but on this occasion he would seem 
to have flicked his host unexpectedly on the raw, 
for Pender Fleming swung toward him, lowering 
savagely. 

“In God’s name!” he cried, “will you grant me no 
human attributes whatever ?” 

“Not many,” said the younger man, without a 
smile. And, after a further moment of that dark 
scowl, Fleming dropped his eyes. 

“You’re spoiled, Beau,” said he. “You have no 
manners. Eh, well, we mustn’t quarrel, we two. 
Get along home and change! I want you to come 
back for dinner. We must celebrate the child’s 
home-coming in some fashion.” 

“Thank you,” said Temple. “I’ll come gladly. 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


We shall be gay. My faith, we shall be feverish! 
Two dull old men and one beautiful but depressed 
young lady. Gad! Donna Vittoria will run away 
back to civilization under cover of the night.” 

At that name Pender Fleming gave a sort of low 
cry and turned his back, moving away toward the 
window. Even the man who had spoken frowned 
and compressed his lips. And, after a moment of 
hesitation, he said, hastily: 

“ Right, then! I shall be back at eight,” and 
went out of the room. 

Vittoria followed him to the side porch, and stood 
beside him there while his horse was being brought 
round. 

“How did you happen to call me that, Beau?” 
she asked. 

“It was a slip,” said he, frowning still. “It was 
a slip. I’m sorry. I — sometimes think of you so. 
It was that, I expect.” 

“Do you think of me so, Beau ?” she said, gently. 
And the man said: 

“Yes — yes!” in an absent tone. “You’ve a right 
to it,” he said. “You’re a sort of princess, I sup- 
pose — at least, your house was a princely house.” 

“I know,” said she. “Mrs. Dudley told me, but 
I’d almost forgotten. I’ve had — so many things to 
think of.” 

Temple glanced down at her sharply, but she was 
looking away across the hills, and did not seem dis- 
posed to explain further about the things of which 
82 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


she had to think. And after a moment he moved 
toward the steps, saying: 

“Here’s my nag, and I must be off. I shall see 
you later, of course. If your trunks have arrived, 
wear your newest and smartest frock for my sake. 
Do you realize that I have never seen you in fine 
feathers ? You’re tolerably good looking, I take it, 
when you’re well got up.” 

7 


VII 


MR. TEMPLE BECOMES YOUNG AGAIN 

ITTORIA watched Temple ride away down the 



V drive, and, after he had disappeared from sight, 
turned back into the house. She would have liked to 
go once more to her father’s study, and sit down on 
the edge of his great writing-table and tell him what 
a wonderful time she had had in New York. She 
was well aware that that was what most girls would 
do under the circumstances as a natural matter of 
course, for she had, within the past few months, 
learned a good deal about how normal households are 
conducted — and some of what she had learned had 
surprised her, and had left her with a little, dull, 
jealous ache at her heart because her life had been 
so very different. That was what any of her new 
friends in town would do, she said, when returned 
from a long absence, and she wondered if she dared 
do it herself. She took a few steps down the hall 
toward her father’s door, and suddenly found that 
she could not go on. The man had held her aloof 
from him too long. She was tongue-tied and em- 
barrassed in his presence. 

So she turned away, and went up the stairs to her 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


own chamber. It was a big square room, looking 
both to the south and to the west through long French 
windows that opened to the floor, and had little 
balconies outside each one. The big pieces of 
furniture, bed, dressing-table, high-boy, and such, 
were of heavy old mahogany, but Vittoria had had 
the chairs and couches covered with bright English 
chintz, and had had the walls hung with a quaint 
paper which matched the chintz almost perfectly. 
So it was a very comfortable room indeed, spacious 
and light and full of cheery color — full also of fresh 
outdoor air, but with a hint of the scent of dried 
lavender. And nobody could ask for an atmosphere 
sweeter or more grateful than that. 

The girl entered with the little glad smile of one 
home-coming to dear and familiar things. She went 
here and there about the chamber, touching the books 
on the tables, moving the chairs an unnecessary half- 
inch each — as, for some mysterious reason, women 
always do — and then she crossed to one of the open 
windows and stepped out upon the little balcony 
beyond. She was at the front of the house, here, 
looking southward, and the winding double sweep 
of the drive curved away below her to the gates far 
down toward the foot of the hill. Beyond, she could 
see the village road and the village itself, with a 
brown haze of smoke hanging over it veil-like in the 
still sunset air. Beyond the village were low hills, 
and, beyond those, hills again, smoky blue against 
the horizon. To the left from Standish another road 
85 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


mounted and sank over rolling ground, and, midway 
of it, she could see Beaumont Temple jogging along 
between the hedge -rows, homeward bound. She 
waved her hand at him again, but the man’s back 
was turned, and, besides, he was too far away to have 
seen. 

Vittoria spoke aloud, staring out across the pleasant 
hills. She said, rather mechanically: 

“ It’s good to be at home again and rest. At least 
— I suppose I’m glad. I wonder ?” She gave the 
matter a moment’s vague thought, and then all at 
once her cheeks flushed and she gripped her hands 
beside her. 

“Yes, I am glad!” she cried out. “I am glad to 
be back here and away from it all.” She remem- 
bered her enthusiastic words to Beaumont Temple 
on the way from the village, and smiled over them a 
little bitterly, for they had been but partly true. The 
face of the man who had made them false came before 
her, as always when she was alone, and she made a 
little sound in her throat which was not a sob, but 
something near to it. 

She was still hurt and angry over the man’s calm 
neglect of her, but she pretended to herself that she 
was much more angry than hurt, and most of the 
time she believed it. She often had little arguments 
with herself about the matter, and, since she could not 
be blind to the fact that she thought about him a 
great deal of the time, she persuaded herself that this 
was because he was the only man who had ever been 
86 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


really rude to her. His conduct stood out very 
conspicuously from the conduct of all the other young 
or old men whom she had met in New York, and that 
was why, she told herself, he so often appeared in her 
thoughts. She argued this very earnestly and with 
a fine appearance of frankness, and after it she 
added that, after all, Mr. Blake had saved her life, 
and therefore she must be grateful to him forever. 

Of those last ten days in town, with their furious 
attempt to drown thought in excessive gayety, she 
tried not to think at all. They remained a sort of 
nightmare. 

“Pm glad to be back!” she said again, and she 
really meant it, for home and the quiet life thereof at 
least spelled sanctuary — asylum. 

Her maid, a middle-aged Scots woman whom she 
had not taken with her to New York, spoke from the 
room behind, to say that the men were bringing the 
trunks up, and Vittoria turned back to see them put 
in place. 

“I must get out something pretty for Beau to see 
me in,” she said. 

But when, two hours later, Temple entered the 
drawing-room at Standish, unannounced, he stopped 
short in the doorway with a soundless cry of amaze- 
ment and pleasure. The girl was standing beside 
a table in the centre of the room, and from above 
her head the mellow light of many candles— they 
burned candles at Standish — fell over her. She 
87 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


had chosen an evening frock of pink satin, very 
simple, unrelieved by any other color, its long, close- 
fitting lines unbroken by adornment. And she was 
without jewels. She had picked up a book from the 
table, and, holding it in one hand, was reading from 
it by the light of the candles. 

Temple, hidden in the shadow of the doorway, 
watched in silence. In his forty and more years he 
had been in many countries and had known many 
beautiful women, but, looking back at this moment, 
he could not remember that he had ever known or 
even seen one whose beauty smote him with such a 
swift shock of surprise and delight as did the sudden 
sight of Vittoria Fleming in her pink satin under the 
candle-light. Of course, he had long been aware that 
she was far more than pretty, but he had been used 
to seeing her in a short corduroy skirt or a riding- 
habit, or at best in a very simple and unpretentious 
evening frock at dinner, with her black hair in a 
knot at the back of her neck. 

There is a great gulf between such primitive sim- 
plicity and the astonishingly perfect picture which 
can be produced by the efforts of a skilful modiste 
and lessons in expert hair-dressing — especially when 
a girl has the face and hair and figure of Vittoria 
Fleming. 

She was even more beautiful than her mother had 
been, Temple said to himself, for she carried her 
splendor with a franker and — not in the disagreeable 
sense — a bolder air. Bianca Fleming had shrunk 
88 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


a little from the world. Oddly enough, splendor was 
the word that first came to him, as it had come to 
Richard Blake. “An unspeakable splendor of vital- 
ity, ’’ he put it, and, like the other man, he was sud- 
denly afraid for the girl. 

But just then Vittoria looked up and saw him, 
and he went down the room to join her. She stroked 
the pink satin with a deprecatory hand. 

“It was the best I had,” said she. “Some of the 
trunks haven’t come yet.” But the man shook his 
head over her, saying: 

“Don’t pretend! You know there is nothing so 
good in any of the other trunks — or in the world. 
And she gave a little pleased laugh like a child whose 
doll has been praised. 

“Do you like it, Beau?” she asked. “Truly? 
Then I’m very glad. Because I’ve always suspected 
you of knowing a lot about clothes, and I’ve always 
been such a frump! Oh, Beau, dear, it is nice to 
have pretty things! I adore them. 

“And it’s nice too,” she said, calmly, “to be able 
to wear things with simple lines instead of being hung 
round like a Christmas tree, isn’t it ?” 

“It is,” said Temple, and he was entirely unable 
to tell whether her speech arose from sheer naivete or 
from a serene consciousness of her own perfection. 

Then Pender Fleming came into the room, and 
presently they went out to dinner. 

Temple’s ironical forecast of that celebration was 
accurately borne out by fact save, perhaps, in the 
89 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


matter of his reference to himself as one of the “two 
dull old men.” He was neither old nor dull. Cer- 
tainly the affair was far from gay. Fleming seemed 
distrait almost beyond his wont — which is putting it 
strongly. He had halted for a long moment when 
he came into the drawing-room and saw his daughter 
there, and had stared at her blankly, much as Temple 
did, but he made no remark upon her appearance 
until they were at table, when he looked at her again 
with veiled eyes, and said: 

“You seem to have grown up.” And after a 
moment, he said : 

“You seem to have done it rather suddenly. I 
must be getting old.” 

He had brought out, in honor of the occasion, one 
of his few remaining bottles of a certain very old 
Madeira. 

“As an especial treat to you, my dear Vittoria,” 
Temple mocked, “in view of the well-known fact 
that no young women, and few old ones, know 
Madeira from sherry — or from Chambertin, for that 
matter.” 

They drank to her return and to her health and 
happiness, and Vittoria sat the while with bright 
eyes and a little, grateful smile. 

But as the dinner progressed a strange and gro- 
tesque gayety seemed to fall upon old Pender Fleming. 
It could not have been the wine, for he habitually 
drank a great deal more than he was drinking at this 
time. Neither of the other two at the table knew 
90 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


what was stirring him, and it is possible that Pender 
himself did not know, but whatever the cause may 
have been it spurred him on to strange and discordant 
laughter over nothing at all — a laughter which was 
like the cawing of crows in a field — and it moved him 
to the fashioning of uncouth and elephantine jokes 
which he seemed to think very funny indeed, and at 
which the other two politely smiled between ex- 
changed glances of astonishment and alarm. 

“You surpass yourself to-night, Pender,” said 
Beaumont Temple, after one of these dire per- 
formances. “I have known you on occasion to be 
appreciative of my sparkling humor, but I didn’t 
know that you set up for a wag yourself. Pender, 
you’re a gay old dog, that you are!” 

“I’m pleased over my daughter’s return,” said his 
host, cocking an eye that shone with unprecedented 
light. 

“Look at her, Beau!” He struck his heavy hand 
upon the table. “She’s turned out a mighty hand- 
some woman, by God, sir! ... I drink to you again, 
my dear.” 

Vittoria laughed, and colored a little. She was 
very much amused, but also a little frightened, for 
she had never before known her father to be in this 
mood, and it alarmed her. 

“A mighty handsome woman!” he said again, 
weightily. “And I never knew. I never saw it 
coming. I thought she was a child till you took a 
hand, Beau, and made me send her to New York.” 
9 1 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Temple frowned, and the girl turned upon him a look 
of swift astonishment, for she had never known that 
she owed her acceptance of Catharine Dudley’s in- 
vitation to him. 

“And I suppose,” grumbled the elder man — “I 
suppose the next thing will be marriage. Well — ” 
He looked from his daughter to Beaumont Temple 
and back again with what he doubtless considered a 
roguish wink, and shook his head playfully. 

“Well, you two make a devilish fine pair!” he 
said. “Eh?” 

Temple frowned again, saying, under his breath: 

“Pender! Pender!” And he shot a quick side- 
look of annoyance toward the girl. But Vittoria 
must have had herself very well in hand just then, 
for, though she usually blushed at samll excuse, her 
cheeks at this moment bore no heightened color. 

“I take it you haven’t been losing your heart in 
New York,” said Pender Fleming, suddenly, in a 
harsh voice. “You haven’t been falling in love with 
anybody there ?” The girl looked up at him and 
laughed. 

“If I had,” she said, “I certainly shouldn’t con- 
fess it to you and Beau. I’m far cleverer than that. 
I’m afraid you don’t know much about girls, father.” 

The man gave a sort of inarticulate grunt and 
seemed to lose interest in the subject, for he sank 
back in his chair with bent head and lowered eyes, 
and began absently to finger the wine-glass before him, 
frowning down upon it as if he were lost in thought 
92 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


— which was his normal bearing when at table, or, 
for that matter, anywhere else. 

Then presently Vittoria rose, for the meal was at 
an end, and left the two men together. She went to 
the drawing-room and sipped her coffee there, but 
presently moved out through one of the open windows 
to the paved terrace which hung balcony-like above 
a sharp dip of hillside beneath. And she went to the 
outer wall of the terrace, and stood, with her back to 
the house, looking over the tree-tops and across the 
broad valley beyond. 

It was a warm, sweet night, a summer night come 
before its time, with summer odors of early roses 
from the gardens near, and a soft summer wind and 
summer stars above. 

Steps sounded upon the brick flagging behind her, 
and Beaumont Temple came where she was beside 
the low wall. 

“You didn’t stay long,” she said, turning to him. 
And he shook his head. 

“No. Long enough, though. Pender has one of his 
silent moods. The spasm of coltishness would seem 
to have been too much for him. I don’t wonder.” 

Vittoria laughed a little. 

“I was almost frightened,” she confessed. “He 
almost frightened me— it was very strange.” She 
turned about once more, and lifted her face to the 
warm night wind. 

“What a night, Beau!” she said, softly. “What 
a heavenly night!” 


93 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


The man stirred beside her. 

“Yes — yes!” he said, absently, after a little. And 
after another pause he said: 

“Vittoria . . . Pender has . . . rather taken the 
words out of my mouth. He has spoiled my game by 
— by interfering. But . . . and I know Pm a very 
dull old party, but it appears that dull old parties 
can feel astonishingly like youngsters on occasion. 
Astonishingly! Do you think . . . ? IPs nothing 
sudden with me, you know. Pve felt it com- 
ing on for a long time, and it came hard, my 
dear.” 

The girl did not stir or speak, and after a moment 
he said: 

“Vittoria, Pender may have come closer than he 
knew when he asked you that question at dinner. 
You passed it off then. Will you answer it now? 
IPs rather important. Is there any one in New 
York, Vittoria, or shall I go on ?” 

Vittoria stared up at him through the half-gloom, 
and she did not in the least understand what he was 
about. If Temple had been another younger man — 
one of the many in New York — she would have 
thought that he was on the point of proposing to her, 
but of course that was out of the question with Beau 
Temple. She imagined that he must be questioning 
her in his role of general adviser and father confessor, 
which was an old role with him, only usually he was 
more direct about it. 

“Do you mean,” she asked — “do you mean, is 
94 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


there any one in New York whom I — who has a claim 
upon me ?” 

Temple said: 

“Yes, that is what I mean.” And then she said, 
with an odd, an almost angry emphasis, which es- 
caped him: 

“No! — No! Certainly not.” 

The man took a single deep breath. After it, he 
asked still another question: 

“How old are you, my dear ?” And she told him: 
“Twenty.” 

Then said he: 

“I am forty-three or forty-four, I forget which, 
and that makes altogether too great a difference be- 
tween us, but it cannot be helped. Alas! one can- 
not grow young again — save, it seems, in spirit. 
Vittoria, will you do me the very great honor of 
marrying me ?” 

She gave a sudden cry of utter amazement — almost 
of fear, and she drew a little way back from him, 
staring. Temple put out one hand to her, but she 
shrank away still farther, and he withdrew the hand 
and put it behind him. The girl said, in a stum- 
bling whisper: 

“Wait — wait a moment, Beau! Let me think. 
It’s — such a surprise. I don’t know — ” 

She stood where she was, leaning against the low 
outer wall of the terrace for some time in silence, her 
hands clasped before her against her breast. The 
yellow light from the window fell out across her face, 
95 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and Temple could see that the face was turned 
toward him, very still and wide eyed, but he could 
make out nothing from the expression of it. He be- 
gan to explain. 

“ I repeat, child, that this is nothing new with me. 
It has been coming for a long time, but I wouldn’t 
speak because — well, because you were so very 
young, and had had so little experience of the world 
— none at all, in fact. When this invitation of Mrs. 
Dudley’s came, I was both glad and terrified — glad 
that you could at last have, even for a few months, a 
taste of the sort of life every girl has a right to — the 
life you’ve been cheated out of; terrified lest through 
it I lose you altogether. It was a — gamble, with most 
of the chances against me, but I welcomed it and made 
Pender let you go. I said to myself: ‘If by some 
Heaven-sent miracle she comes back heart-whole, 
then at last you will have a right to speak, because 
then she will be able to answer from something like 
a clear understanding. She’ll be grown up then,’ 
I said to myself. 

“And so,” said Beaumont Temple, the novelist 
of the chosen few, “so here we are at last, my dear, 
face to face. What answer can you give me ?” 

The girl did not at once speak, and he went on 
further: 

“I know under what a tremendous handicap I 
start the race. There’s more than age alone. You 
have known me all your life. You’ve sat on my knee 
when you were little, and burrowed your head in my 
96 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


shoulder, and wept on me, and told me your troubles. 
I’ve been, always, a sort of second father to you, or 
an uncle, or a very much older brother. That’s all 
against me. There’s a lot against me. What’s on 
the credit side ? Precious little, I fear, save — love — 
and some understanding — and a passionate desire 
to take you out of this tomb, where you’ve been so 
long walled up, out into the world that you’ve al- 
ready had a glimpse of now. It’s a good place, 
this world. I heartily believe that. I should like 
to show it all to you — all the beautiful things there 
are — and I should like you to know the people who 
inhabit it. It’s possible, Vittoria, it’s just possible 
that I could make you happy. What d’you think ?” 


VIII 


THE DRIVEN SHIP 


1 literally and objectively as if a body of solid 



flesh had stepped between her and the light, 
the face of Richard Blake came before Vittoria’s 
eyes and hung there against the darkness. She was 
not frightened, because the manifestation was noth- 
ing novel to her. She had long had the habit, 
learned perhaps from much solitude, of visualizing 
her thoughts more vividly than most people do, and 
she was accustomed to seeing Richard Blake at any 
hour of the day or night, a very real presence between 
her and the physical world round about. He came 
to her in many guises — or, should it be said, in many 
moods: sometimes she saw him as he had been on 
that very first evening of all — grave-eyed, tender, 
sympathetic, sharing her mood, understanding what 
was in her mind before she could give the thought 
words; and sometimes he came silent, frowning, 
troubled, as at a certain dinner-party; and sometimes 
he came in cold mockery, which was odd, because the 
girl had never really seen him like that in the flesh. 

He came, or his wraith came, in mockery, on this 
evening. His eyes looked coldly upon Vittoria 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Fleming. She saw him laugh at her a little, and 
though in these strange appearances she never 
heard him speak, she yet imagined him to say words 
that Richard Blake could never under any con- 
ceivable circumstances have said to any woman. 
She imagined him to say: 

“You might as well answer ‘no’ to this good man 
who is before you, and so have done with it, for you 
do not love him, and you will never love him or any 
other man in the world but me. I do not love you 
and I do not want you, but I will come between you 
and all other men so long as you may live, and you 
shall never forget me. Now, answer ‘yes’ to Beau- 
mont Temple if you dare.” 

It was a grotesquely absurd speech, evolved al- 
together out of the shaken heart and the hurt pride 
and the extreme bitterness of Vittoria Fleming her- 
self, but she imagined it to come from the presence 
which hung in darkness before her, and through 
which she saw but dimly the yellow oblong of the 
open window and the white shirt-front of Beaumont 
Temple, and the ruddy, lighted side of his face. 

She gave a little shivering sob, and her hands, 
clasped together over her breast, strained together 
fiercely until the blood went out of the fingers. 
Temple thought he had distressed her, and uttered 
an exclamation of pity and of self-rebuke. The 
sound of his voice, strong and familiar, loved through 
many years, was like the call of the bells of home 
through the fog to a laboring ship. It rang of peace 
s 99 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and comforts — safety and harbor. With outspread 
hands she thrust aside that misty, mocking presence 
as if it had been an actual mist, and she took two 
steps forward, which brought her where the man 
stood in wait. She was breathing fast. Beaumont 
Temple caught those groping hands in his and drew 
them together. The girl found herself with her face 
hidden upon his sturdy shoulder. It was not the 
first time, by any means, that it had been there. 

She cried his name in a small voice wet with tears, 
and for a long time she could say no more, but at last 
she looked up to him. The light was across her 
face, in her dark eyes, and Temple regarded her 
gravely. He was wiser than most men, he may have 
seen more than love there, may have felt something 
unspoken, unexplained, in the shivering that wrung 
her. She said: 

“Beau, you know better than I. Is it what you 
want of me that I feel for you ? How can I be sure ? 
. . . Beau, Pm far fonder of you than of anybody else 
in the world. I turn to you always, by sheer in- 
stinct, for comfort, or for help, or for wisdom. I 
trust you utterly. With all my heart, I wish — Oh, 
is that love, Beau ?” 

Even as she spoke, voices clamored and shouted 
within her that it was not, but she stilled them 
desperately. At least he meant shelter — light and 
warmth — and she was frightened to her depths. She 
clung to him. 

The man smiled down upon her. He was very 
ioo 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


wise — or perhaps very brave — he did not attempt 
caresses. His arm about her shoulders held her 
loosely. It was the Beau Temple of old — the elder 
brother. He said: 

“ It is a great deal, my dear — more than I deserve. 
It will do to go on with, I think. I think I hardly 
expected that an old codger like me should have 
roused any great and romantic passion in you. If 
I am more to you than any other man, if you turn to 
me naturally, by instinct, it seems to me that I ought 
to be exceedingly happy and proud. Shall we go 
on, then, like this, for a little while ? Shall we give 
you time to think it over — to look at me, if you find 
you can, in a somewhat new light? I don’t want 
to rush you into anything, you know. I might 
frighten you and lose you. I want to give you time. 
Only — only, my very dear and beautiful child, I’m 
growing no younger, you know. Don t make me 
wait too long!” 

Vittoria had hidden her face once more, but he 
made out that she said: 

‘Til say ‘yes’ now, Beau, if you want me to.” 

It was a cruel test of him, but the man bore it. 
He shook his head. 

“I’m not a bully,” said he. “I won’t hurry you. 
Think me over, Donna Vittoria, and see if I’ll do.” 

He laughed over her in the dark, and patted her 
shoulder with his big square hand — the same hand 
which wrote profound fiction, but didn’t look it 
again the elder brother. And presently the girl was 

ioi 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


able to laugh too. She fell to criticising his methods 
of love-making. 

“If I were a famous novelist,” said she, “and had 
made countless heroes propose to countless heroines 
in countless eloquent phrases, I think — I think I 
should be able to manage something better in my 
own case than you have put forward to-night, Beau. 
You make love like an amateur. You might at 
least have gone down on your knees.” 

“Vittoria,” said he, “I should look like a fool on 
my knees. You’d laugh till you cried — and so, after 
a brief space of agony, should I.” He shook his 
head sadly. 

“It’s a very difficult matter, this love-making. 
I’ve read wonderfully eloquent scenes in works of 
fiction or poetry — maybe I’ve even written one or two 
— but, my insatiable young friend, if any man should 
try to say those beautiful things to any woman in 
real life, she’d either laugh in his face or call for the 
police. You just can’t be poetic nowadays. People 
have too much sense of humor.” 

“Of course,” said Vittoria Fleming, humbly — “of 
course I am very young and inexperienced, but it has 
always been a cherished theory of mine that people 
in love had no sense of humor — lost it for the time 
being or mislaid it. I may be wrong.” But she 
was not; she was right, and Temple admitted it. 

They sat down side by side on the wall of the 
terrace, and talked for the space of what may have 
been an hour about what had happened — little 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


enough it was — during Vittoria’s absence, and they 
made plans for the future which included a great 
deal of tennis and many rides, and much golf over 
a nine-hole course which Temple was having laid 
out on his own broad acres of unprofitable land. 
Vittoria told him about the Faring’ s lease of a neigh- 
boring estate, and Temple, after a first unworthy 
prick of jealousy, was very glad to hear it, for it would 
mean a much gayer state of affairs than that som- 
nolent countryside had known for a long time past. 

“ They’ll be having house-parties, of course,” said 
he, “ though Heaven knows what they will find for 
their guests to do, hereabouts. Oh, we shall be 
rivalling Lenox and Tuxedo soon! How Pender 
will love it!” Vittoria gasped at that, for her 
father’s possible attitude had never occurred to her. 

“ He’ll hate it, won’t he?” she cried. “I’d never 
thought of that. How dreadful! Beau, do you 
suppose he’ll refuse to countenance it at all — to let 
me — well, do my part, you know ? He loathes 
visitors. Will he refuse to let me have people in for 
lunch or dinner ?” 

“I’ll make him play up!” said Temple, rashly. 
“Leave it to me. It will be a struggle, doubtless, but 
I’ll make Pender behave decently. Your visit in 
New York was an entering wedge. Just you wait 
and see what follows it.” 

He rose to his feet. 

“And now I must be off. It’s late. Good-night, 
Miss Fleming!” She gave him her hands, and he 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


kissed them lightly. But again he was wise — or 
brave, for he made no attempt to draw her back to 
those heights whereon they had stood for a little 
while — no more love-making. He said: 

“Kiss Pender good-night for me! P1I slip away 
without disturbing him.” So he went away into the 
house, and after a few moments she heard the wheels 
of his trap on the gravel of the drive, and listened to 
them until the sound was lost in the distance. 

She sat still a little longer where she was, and then 
she, too, went in, and closed and locked the window 
after her. At the foot of the stairs she hesitated, but 
finally turned back and went down the hall to its 
farther end, where Pender Fleming’s study was, and 
she knocked on the door and went in. 

Her father sat before his great flat- topped desk 
that was littered with books and papers and with 
writing things, and he was reading out of a leather- 
backed volume. He wore a green paper eye-shade 
with wire ends which went over his ears as do the 
bows of spectacles, and he looked, in it, like some 
strange, hitherto unknown monster — something per- 
haps from Mars. But at his daughter’s entrance he 
removed this adornment, and his pale face underwent 
the weird momentary distortion which passed with 
him for a smile. He said: 

“Ah, my dear! Come to say good-night ? That’s 
thoughtful of you. That’s thoughtful.” (It was 
also unusual.) The girl closed the door and came 
forward. The place was illuminated only by a single 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


reading- lamp which hung low over the centre of 
the great table, masked above by an almost opaque 
shade, so that it cast a circle of yellow light. Else- 
where the room was in gloomy shadow, and the shapes 
of chairs or of other pieces of furniture crouched 
dim and grotesque in the half obscurity. Vittoria 
came to the edge of the circle of yellow lamplight 
and halted there. The glow, reflected from the 
things on the big table, struck upward upon the satin 
of her dress and upon her arms and neck, and 
gleamed in her sober eyes. She must have presented 
a very beautiful picture to Pender Fleming as he sat 
still, watching her, but she must have presented or 
suggested to him more than that. Something obscure 
to her, hidden from her understanding, seems to have 
wrung the man, for Vittoria saw his face alter, grow 
pinched and haggard, despite its vast pallidity, and 
she saw her father’s eyes fix themselves in a strange 
stare as if they were seeing beyond this world’s veil 
— visions very sweet or very terrible, or perhaps both 
together. She saw a strong shudder go over the 
man’s heavy body from head to feet like a sudden 
violent chill, and a second one after that. She 
thought he was ill, and moved another step toward 
him, saying, quickly: 

“What is it ? What is it ?” But at that he made 
a quick movement in his chair, and the odd, strained 
look went out of his face. He said : 

“ Has Beau Temple gone ?” And Vittoria answered : 

“Yes. He has just gone.” She was still a little 
105 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


troubled and alarmed, but she was afraid of Pender, 
and dared not ask him if he was suffering pain. He 
was always very impatient about queries of that sort. 
She laughed suddenly. 

“Beau told me to kiss you good-night for him,” 
she said, and at first her father frowned, then made 
one of his rare attempts at a smile — and that was 
twice in one evening. 

“Beau has a privileged tongue,” said he. “IPs 
no good being angry with him because he wouldn’t 
care. . . . Have you two — that is to say, has he — well, 
have you anything to tell me about Beau and your- 
self?” 

Vittoria looked down upon him with some wonder 
because she had never before seen her father show 
any embarrassment. But, after a moment, she said : 

“Yes, I have. Beau has asked me to marry him, 
and I suppose I shall do it.” 

“You suppose!” broke in the man. “What do 
you mean by ‘ suppose’? Don’t you know whether 
you mean to marry him or not ?” 

“I asked him,” said Vittoria, “to give me a little 
time to be more sure of myself — or I think he sug- 
gested it himself. It was all a great surprise to me. 
I hadn’t expected it, you know.” 

“No! no!” said Pender Fleming, in a sort of paci- 
fied growl. “No, I dare say not. Well, I should 
be glad if you’d make up your mind as quickly as 
you can, and make it up to marry Beaumont Temple. 
You won’t find another like him.” He seemed to 
106 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


realize that he was lacking a little in parental gentle- 
ness, for he seemed to make an effort to soften his 
tone. 

“I know,” said he, “that you’re very young, child, 
and I know women like to walk round a thing, and 
look at it, and turn their backs on it, and pretend 
they never wanted it at all before they finally pick it 
up. But I have set my heart on your marrying 
Beaumont Temple. I have hoped for a long time 
that it would come about. He’s wise and steady, 
Beau is. His follies, if he ever had any, are behind 
him. He’ll be a good husband — and, besides, he’s 
no bad match" I don’t follow such matters, but I 
suppose his reputation and standing as a writer are 
high.” 

“Oh yes, indeed!” said the girl at once. “Yes, 
very much so.” But Pender went on, without heed- 
ing her: 

“And since you seem to have come back from New 
York without having formed any foolish attachment 
there, as I was afraid you might do — ” He stopped 
abruptly, and looked up at her with sharp eyes. 

“That’s true, I suppose? Eh?” And she said: 

“Quite true!” 

Pender noted the edge in her tone — the somewhat 
unnecessary emphasis, but laid it to maidenly scorn 
(which, in a sense, it certainly was). So he went on: 

“I advise you to give Beau his answer with as little 
delay as possible. Don’t dawdle!” 

“I won’t keep him waiting too long,” said she. 

107 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“I’m very, very fond of him. The only question 
is, am I fond enough, and in the right way ? I dare 
say I am.” 

She bent over and kissed her father’s cheek, and 
started to leave the room, but after a moment’s 
hesitation turned back. She said: 

“ There’s something that I suppose you ought to 
know. I don’t want to pain you by referring to it, 
but perhaps you ought to know. Mrs. Dudley told 
me about my mother. I found out that she had 
known her, and I asked for all she could tell me.” 

Pender Fleming gave a violent shiver, and caught 
his breath. Afterward he spoke to himself in a dry 
whisper, but, when that was done, he cried, harshly: 

“What did that woman tell you? Every word! 
Tell me every word!” 

Vittoria repeated as well as she could exactly what 
Catharine Dudley had told her, and she had an ex- 
cellent memory, so that she repeated it almost word 
for word. She was not surprised at her father’s 
manner, for she knew that it tried him beyond all 
bearing to speak of his dead wife or to hear her 
spoken of. She had always known that. From 
earliest childhood she had been taught by nurses 
and governesses that her mother must never be spoken 
of — Pender’s sacred grief respected in complete 
silence. She regretted having to break that long 
silence now, but, as she had said, she thought the 
man ought to know what she had learned. And she 
looked down upon him with sorrow, and with more 
108 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


sympathy than she had ever before felt for her 
father, and with something like a touch of awe in 
the face of such deathless mourning. 

Pender sat silent through her explanation, silent 
after it, his heavy chin sunk upon his breast, so that 
his face was in deep shadow, and the top of his bald 
head, strange and moonlike, alone illuminated. He 
sat there quite motionless for a long time, and the 
girl stood before him waiting, but at last he spoke 
in his ordinary voice — dry, and without the least 
expression. Vittoria had expected almost anything 
of him — anger, bitter reproof, perhaps (and this 
was a vague hope) a breaking down of that long 
reserve — father and daughter brought closer through 
a common love and a common sorrow. She had 
thought that much might come of it, but all that 
Pender Fleming said, in that dry, expressionless 
voice of his, was: 

“Good-night! Good-night !” And he did not 
even look up. 

Vittoria turned, and went out of the room. 


IX 


A FEW QUIET DAYS 

V ITTORIA passed the week following her return 
to Standish very restfully and pleasantly. Now 
that the interest and excitement of the season were 
over, she found that the long strain of activity and the 
insufficient sleep had taxed her strength much more 
than she had realized, and she was glad to be com- 
pletely idle for a time. She rode a little, either alone 
or with Beaumont Temple, and once or twice she 
played tennis — very much off her form, and often she 
took long, rambling, leisurely walks across the hills 
and uplands attended only by one of the Gordon 
setters or by her Irish terrier, Mr. Hennessy. 

She had abundant time in these days to look back 
over the past five months, to relive them in fancy, as 
all women, and particularly all girls, love to do. The 
period stood out from the rest of her life as letters 
printed in red stand out from a black-and-white page, 
and sometimes it was difficult for her to believe that 
it was really true and not a sort of Cinderella dream. 
There was much in it to be reviewed with delight — 
with smiles and laughter — and very little to regret. 
She was mildly sorry for those last ten days — for 
no 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


what low people might call her “whirlwind finish,” 
but, after all, it had been nothing very desperate — a 
few stolen meetings with the amusing Monty Belling- 
ham, a few motor rides with rather frowned-upon 
people like the Vernons and the Haddon-Beldings, 
who, Vittoria shrewdly suspected, led nothing like 
the murky careers they boasted of. And, after all, the 
“whirlwind finish” had accomplished the desired 
object. It had, by sheer force of filling all her waking 
hours, deadened thought at a time when thought 
would have hurt her. 

It would have hurt her now, would have become 
intolerable, but that she had learned how success- 
fully any train of thought can be kept out of mind by 
sheer force of will. All people who have suffered 
great grief or temptation or anxiety know that the 
mind is a sort of well, whose waters are at the top pure 
and clear and amply sufficient for daily use through 
a long period. But they know that at the bottom of 
the well lurks always the thing they dread, quiet, but 
alive and unforgotten; and they know that some day 
the waters will be disturbed, or the well run dry, and 
then the thing at the bottom will rise again and have 
its way with them. 

Vittoria thought that the thing which lay deep 
down at the bottom of her mind might die if she 
left it there untouched, unnourished. Indeed, she 
was almost sure, since she seemed to have so little 
difficulty, once the trick was learned, in keeping her 
thoughts from it altogether. There was no reason 
hi 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


to suppose that she would see Richard Blake for a 
very long time, and it was quite possible that the 
long time might become never, since he was abroad 
in remote lands almost constantly. In any case, she 
argued, she could not possibly see him until another 
season, and by that time she would be safely married 
to Beaumont Temple. 

She looked ahead to her probable marriage with, 
after the first maidenly fears were done, a calm and 
contented mind. Its only alternative appeared to 
be an indefinite continuation of her lonely life at 
Standish, and the months in New York had taught 
her how intolerable that would be. Moreover, she 
was exceedingly fond of Beau Temple, and she could 
imagine going through life with him very happily 
indeed. They would travel a good deal, she thought, 
and they would spend at least a part of the winter in 
New York — perhaps go to London for May and June. 
She knew that he would be tender with her always, 
never unreasonable or ill tempered, and she knew 
that she ought to be very proud indeed to have won 
the love of a man who had achieved so much and who 
was so much in demand wherever he went. She 
was proud of it, and she thought of him very tenderly 
as she sat in her garden, or walked across the wooded 
hills with Mr. Hennessy, and looked forward into that 
pleasant life which was to come. 

She realized, of course, that what she felt for 
Temple was — as he himself had said to her — no 
great romantic passion. It was not at all the state 
1 12 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


of mind of the enamoured ladies in certain of her 
works of fiction, but she doubted if that somewhat 
hectic state of mind was to be desired. The works 
of fiction themselves bore witness that it was ex- 
ceedingly unrestful and that people subject to it were 
almost always in hot water of some kind : they seemed 
always to be pursued by malignant fates and to have 
altogether a terrible time of it. Further, it must be 
remembered that Vittoria had never been brought in 
actual contact with a serious love-affair — had never 
seen one in progress, for the mild flirtations and the 
preliminary flutterings of the debutante set in New 
York could by no means come under so important a 
head. A number of very young men and one or two 
elder ones (with wives) had spoken to her of love, 
and had seemed quite feverish and harrowed up about 
it, but the girl herself had remained untouched — 
untouched save in one never-to-be-forgotten instance, 
and that must not be thought of— must be buried 
from sight — smothered — killed. Certainly the 
strange agony of that solitary experience was not such 
as to make her long for a repetition of it in her rela- 
tion to Beau Temple. Better infinitely the peace and 
quiet and calm that she knew so well and that so 
contented her. 

“I won’t keep dear Beau waiting too long,” she 
said once to Mr. Hennessy, as they sat on a granite- 
ribbed hill-slope, a mile or two from home. “A little 
longer — a few days longer — for pride’s sake, and then 
I’ll tell him, and make him go to town for a pearl 
IJ 3 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


ring.” She even decided, after some anxious thought, 
that the ring should have two pearls, not too large 
and not too small, but just right — one pink one and 
one bluish white. 

She had another pleasant thing to look forward to 
during these quiet days, and that was the arrival of 
the Harry Farings in the old Lee place, two miles 
away. She and Beaumont Temple between them 
laid siege to Pender at luncheon one day on this sub- 
ject. Pender, all unconscious of threatening peril, 
had seemed uncommonly human that day, and had 
even been heard to laugh. Vittoria met Temple’s 
eyes across the table, saw him nod, and made her 
preliminary announcement. It was the first Fleming 
had heard of the matter. He looked up at the girl 
uneasily, scowled, looked down again, and at last said 
that the Farings’ movements were no concern of his. 
He added that he didn’t know them, anyhow. But 
then Beaumont Temple took a hand. He said: 

“Rubbish, Pender! You can’t forever go on play- 
ing the hibernating bear. You must remember that 
you’ve got a young lady to consider nowadays, not a 
child. These Farings are charming people, who have 
done almost as much for Vittoria as Catharine Dud- 
ley has done. She has been at their house a hundred 
times, and on intimate terms. You’re enormously 
in their debt.” 

Pender could have wept for sheer rage and alarm. 
He must have heard his castle walls crumbling about 
him. But the younger man pressed on: 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“I, for one, am immensely glad they’re coming, 
both for Vittoria’s sake and for my own. As for 
you, you’ll have to do your neighborly part or write 
yourself down quite blind to all decency/ 5 

For sheer panic the master of Standish was near 
an explosion just then, but Vittoria interposed to say 
that there would be no need of anything elaborate in 
the way of entertaining, since the Farings intended 
to be very quiet indeed. 

“They will have people down for Friday-to- 
Mondays I suppose,” said she, “but the rest of the 
time Harry Faring will be at work, and Beatrix and I 
can just ride about or play golf over Beau’s new links. 

“Of course,” she said, “if you don’t mind, I should 
almost have to have them here occasionally for lunch 
or dinner, but they won’t expect more than that.” 

So Pender, breathing hard, was allowed to come 
off better than he had feared, but when he had fled 
to cover Beaumont Temple shook his head over the 
girl, saying: 

“That was foolish of you, my dear. We had him 
bound hand and foot — for, after all, Pender does 
realize that there’s such a thing as the repayment of 
obligations. Hand and foot we had him bound, 
and now you’ve well-nigh released him again. You’re 
too soft-hearted with Pender.” 

“He looked so frightened and miserable, Beau!” 
the girl cried. “I couldn’t bear it. Poor father!” 

“Poor you, I say!” returned the man. “Are we 
going to ride, this afternoon ?” 

9 115 


X 


“for those in peril on the sea” 

V ITTORIA rode over to the old Lee place 
(which, for obvious reasons, was called Cedar 
Hill) on the day after the Farings’ arrival. She 
found a man to take her horse, and was climbing the 
steps of the big colonial porch with its high pillars, 
when Beatrix Faring came round the corner of the 
house, aproned, gauntleted, and smeared with earth, 
flourishing a large gardener’s trowel as she ap- 
proached. 

“Dear child,” she said, “this is more than sweet 
of you! Lean over and kiss me with great care. 
Don’t touch me anywhere, because I’m the grubbiest 
being in all New England. There’s a duck of an old 
gardener here who has been letting me dig in the 
flower-beds. He has a big white beard and no 
mustache. Fancy!” They accomplished the kiss 
with some difficulty but complete success, and Mrs. 
Faring shook herself free of the enormous gauntlets. 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to help me out of this 
apron,” she said. “ I borrowed it from the gardener’s 
wife, and I’ve not the faintest idea of where it comes 
apart: somewhere behind, I think. Look about, 
116 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

there’s a dear!” Between them they freed her from 
this garment, and she looked down at her frock with 
a mild dismay. 

“It’s quite spoiled, isn’t it? Well, I’ve had fun 
grubbing, anyhow. I was just like a dog digging out 
a badger. The dirt flew to both sides of me and over 
my head, and that ducky gardener hopped up and 
down on one foot, and moaned : 

“ 4 Saftly, mem ! Saftly ! Ye’ll ha’e ’m a ’ oot by the 
rutts,’ meaning, I dare say, the plants.” She held 
Vittoria by the shoulders and examined her. 

“You’ve been resting!” she said. “You’re looking 
heavenly, my dear. I never saw you look so well. 
You’re pounds fatter, and it becomes you very much. 
How’d you manage it in ten days’ time ?” 

“Oh, lying in the grass and letting the sun shine 
on me,” said the girl. “Take me in and show me the 
house; I’ve never been inside it, you know. No one 
has lived here since I can remember.” 

Mrs. Faring laughed, and said: 

“You’ll scream when you see some of the things. 
They’re very comic. But, altogether, we shall be 
quite comfortable here, I think. There’s heaps of 
room, and I can hide away a few of the worst mon- 
strosities.” She explained, as she went in, that they 
had sent the servants down three days ahead of them, 
and so had found the house fresh and clean and 
habitable when they arrived. Indeed, Vittoria saw 
that it bore no visible trace of having been unoccupied 
for many years. It was in no way a remarkably 
H7 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


beautiful house, but the rooms were large and well 
arranged and of good proportion. The house itself 
was a hundred years old or more, and the chief 
decoration and the larger pieces of furniture were 
simple and massive and good, but the generation of 
Lees which had inhabited it during the seventies and 
early eighties would seem to have been unable to 
withstand that wave of atrocious taste which swept 
across the country in their day, for the fine big 
colonial rooms were full of stuffed satin chairs which 
looked so much like little, fat, absurd gentlemen that 
one fairly listened to hear them pant and wheeze; 
and of sofas apparently constructed of a series of 
pink sausages; and of contorted seats made like a 
letter S, so that two people could sit in them turned 
opposite ways, but with their faces six inches apart. 

“Did you ever see anything more horrible ?” cried 
Beatrix Faring, pointing to these last atrocities. 
“They must have been made for people who wanted 
to kiss each other by the hour and be thoroughly 
comfortable over it. I haven’t found any wax 
fruit under glass globes, but there are two china dogs 
of an unknown species on that what-not in the cor- 
ner. (Isn’t that what you call them — ‘what-nots’? 
I learned the name from the caretaker.) And I, with 
my own hands, have removed three silk scarves 
which were draped gracefully over the frames of some 
family portraits. You must see the portraits. 
There’s a Stuart and two Copleys, and one that I 
think is a Romney, but I can’t find the signature.” 

118 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


They went through the lower part of the house 
and out upon a covered side porch, from which there 
was a magnificent view across the hills, northward, 
and then Mrs. Faring took the girl up to her own 
sunny and pleasant sitting-room in the story above; 
but as they were coming down the stairs again, she 
said : 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you! We brought a guest 
down with us — a friend of yours. Give you three 
guesses, and help you out by telling you to begin on — 
that it’s a man!” 

“Heavens! how should I know?” said Vittoria. 
“It might be any one of fifty. Only don't tell me 
that it is Mr. Bellingham, because if it is I shall hide. 
I had enough of him in New York.” The name of 
Richard Blake never for an instant occurred to her, 
because she had no reason to connect him with the 
Farings. She even did not know that they were 
friends. 

“It’s not Monty Bellingham,” said the elder 
woman. “Guess again! Well, I sha’n’t tell you. 
I shall let it be a complete surprise, and watch your 
faces, when you meet, for a guilty blush.” She 
said that in a light tone, but she meant it literally. 
She was very curious to find out how much, if at all, 
the girl would be affected by learning that Blake had 
followed her to her stronghold. She had thought 
about the affair a good deal during the past ten days. 
Richard Blake had told her that there was no reason 
whatever for believing that Miss Fleming regarded 
119 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


him as anything but a casual acquaintance, and a 
rather rude one at that; but the speech had not quite 
agreed with certain other half admissions of his, nor 
at all with his manner. So she had taken the liberty 
of disbelieving it, and had made up her mind that 
there was a good deal more onVittoria’s side than 
the man would confess. She remembered the girl’s 
feverish activity and recklessness during her last 
fortnight in town, and, being a woman, understood 
it in the light of what she partly knew, partly guessed. 
Altogether she had arrived at a conclusion which was 
oddly close to the truth, but fell somewhat short of it. 
It must, however, be borne in mind that she knew 
nothing of Beaumont Temple’s arrival in the lists. 

“It’s not Monty Bellingham,” she said, again. 
“It’s a real man, and one I’m very fond of myself; 
but if I were threatened with death or serious 
bodily injury, I should probably give way and con- 
fess that his reasons for coming here had more to do 
with Miss Vittoria Fleming than with me — and I 
call it rather noble of me to tell you.” 

“Well, I give it up,” the girl said. “I give it up. 
I sha’n’t even try to guess. I only hope he’s one of 
the nice ones. Where have you concealed him? 
And where, by the way, is Mr. Faring ?” 

The elder woman explained that her husband and 
guest were out at the stables, but broke off to listen, 
and said: 

“I think they’re coming. I think I hear them. 
Have you your blush ready ?” 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Vittoria heard footsteps on the porch below — the 
big front door was open — and Harry Taring’s voice 
saying something about the rotten road between 
Mickleham and Stamford. Then two men came 
into the doorway, and stood there a moment before 
entering. 

Her hand dropped away from Mrs. Faring’s 
shoulder as if the strength had gone out of it, and 
she gave a single exclamation — just a little “oh!” — 
in a low tone, but Beatrix Faring thought that one 
quiet sound told more than any complete sentence or 
even any long explanation that she had ever heard. 
It is odd, but she thought instantly of the story that 
used to be told of a certain famous tragedian who 
is now dead— that he could make people weep bitter- 
ly by the recital of the cardinal numbers from one 
to twenty. She looked into Vittoria’s face with some 
anxiety, and the anticipated blush had not come 
there, but an even pallor instead, and she put up one 
arm behind the girl’s shoulders, wondering if she 
might be about to faint. 

Just then the men came into the hall below, and 
glanced up to where the two were standing midway 
of the stairs. Harry Faring gave a shout of welcome, 
ran part of the way up to where they were, and 
Vittoria advanced to meet him. They went on down 
to the foot of the stairs, and Faring asked: 

“You’ve met Richard Blake, haven’t you ?” His 
wife tried to break in and spare the girl, but Vittoria 
said, quite easily: 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Oh yes, indeed. I should think I had! Mr. 
Blake saved my silly neck once when I had fallen 
off a horse and was being dragged. I’ve never had 
a chance to thank him properly.” She put out her 
hand to the younger man, and Blake took it for an 
instant, but Mrs. Faring saw that the girl kept her 
eyes down, and, as soon as Blake had released her 
hand, turned a little away from him, though he was 
stumbling through some rather incoherent dis- 
claimer of having rendered any very useful service. 
Mrs. Faring interposed, quickly: 

“Well, I call saving anybody’s life doing them a 
rather useful service, you know.” And Vittoria 
laughed, and said: 

“Yes, my neck is useful to me, in spite of Mr. 
Blake’s depreciation of it.” She drew Harry Faring 
aside with some remark about the dreadful stuffed 
furniture, and they moved away into one of the rooms 
beyond. 

Beatrix Faring waited until they were gone, and 
then touched Richard Blake upon the arm. He 
had been staring after the other two, and turned back 
tc her with a start. 

She looked into his face very seriously. 

“You’ll have to be careful,” she said. “I was 
idiotic enough not to warn her that you were here. 
I merely told her that we had a guest, and she was 
wondering who it could be when you came into the 
door. She turned quite white. You’ll have to be 
careful. I imagine she resents your avoiding her. 

122 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Why didn’t you tell me you had saved her life ? 
Men are such — oh, I could slap you! You deserve 
to lose her, and you’ll do it, too, if you don’t begin 
to behave like a sane human being. She frightened 
me cold when she went white like that. You can’t 
have told me half the truth on that day in town.” 

“I told you all I knew,” he protested. “You’re 
imagining things now. What do you want me to 
do?” 

“Be a little bit human!” cried the exasperated 
lady. “You look and act like a graven image, like 
a soldier on parade — and a recruit at that. See if 
you can’t talk and make motions! Come along!” 

They pursued the other two and caught them up 
on the north porch, where they had gone, as Harry 
Faring put it, to see if the view was still there. Blake 
did his desperate utmost to “talk and make motions” 
as he had been bidden, but all the many devils of 
perversity seemed to have him in their grip, and he 
was like a man frozen. It was his instinct, as it is 
the instinct of most men, to take a firm hold upon 
himself in moments of great strain, and he did not 
realize how complete a thing that hold was. As 
at the dinner-party of their second meeting, he was 
cold and silent, and had the air of being extremely 
bored. Beatrix Faring saw and understood, and in 
her despair could have shaken the man. She made 
an excuse for drawing her husband back into the 
house, and avoided Vittoria’s wrathful eye as she 
went, but when, in five minutes, they returned, the 
123 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


two were talking stiffly about some of their friends 
in New York, and in each of the girl’s cheeks a little 
red spot was burning. 

In justice to the man, awkward and self-conscious 
though he was, it must be conceded that during this 
brief interval he had made an heroic effort to lay 
aside his armor, to hark back to the oddly intimate 
footing upon which the first and the last of their 
meetings had taken place, but the girl was thoroughly 
angry, and met him with an icy indifference which 
was impregnable. 

It is a favorite and untiring reproach on the part 
of critics, both literary and dramatic, that the com- 
plications of many romances and plays hang upon 
lovers’ quarrels, misunderstandings due to the ex- 
aggerated and tragic pride of young people who 
would rather suffer than explain. The critical gentle- 
men are very fond of scoffing at this so-called arti- 
ficial means of prolonging an agony, and they have 
certain set phrases for the expression of their scorn 
which they can write with their backs turned and 
their eyes closed (perhaps even with their hands 
tied). Yet these same beings know perfectly well 
that, in real life, it is just this prideful silence at 
a moment when a dozen frank words would ex- 
plain everything which is responsible for half the 
bitter misunderstandings, half the broken hearts, in 
this perverse and stubborn world. There has never 
been any satisfactory explanation of why most people 
should prefer their dignity to their happiness, but 
124 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

people are so, and if the critical gentlemen do not 
like it in works of fiction, at least they have to put up 
with it in real life — and that is some satisfaction to the 
present scribe. 

The things which afterward came to pass in the 
history of Vittoria Fleming and of Richard Blake 
and of certain other people were not altogether de- 
pendent upon the absurd attitude of these two 
toward each other on the occasion of their fourth 
meeting, but the meeting had, for all that, at least one 
direct and important and far-reaching consequence, 
and so this history does depend somewhat upon it. 

Vittoria remained not more than an hour at 
Cedar Hill, and then, upon some plausible pretext, 
got away. When her horse was led round, Richard 
Blake put her up, and, while performing the feat, 
asked permission to call at Standish. There was 
no way of refusing short of absolute rudeness, and 
she said rather ungraciously that she would be glad 
to see him there. But she made a mental note to 
avoid the meeting by all possible means. Then she 
waved her crop to the three on the porch, and rode 
away. 

She began to feel the reaction from the hour’s 
strain as soon as ever her back was turned, and, as 
the horse picked its way at an easy trot down the long 
slope toward the open gates, she was aware that her 
heart was pounding, and, with a sudden access of 
rage, she was aware that she wanted to cry. She 
beat the clinched fist of her free right hand fiercely 
125 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


upon her knee, winked hard a few times, and at 
least the disgrace of tears was put behind her. She 
cried, aloud: 

“Why did he come here? Why?” And her 
horse pricked up its ears and shook its head once or 
twice, as if it felt unable to venture an opinion. 

“He has spoiled everything!” she said, but not 
aloud this time. And, indeed, she seemed to be right. 
The pleasant, easy intercourse which she had hoped 
for between the three houses bade fair to be com- 
pletely wrecked by Blake’s unexplained presence. She 
could not imagine why he had come. Surely it could 
not have been, as Beatrix Faring had laughingly in- 
timated, because Cedar Hill was near to Standish, 
because he had had the air of a man bored to extinc- 
tion in her presence. To be sure, he had made one 
attempt, but obviously at the expense of great effort, 
to be a little more polite, but doubtless that had come 
from a sort of belated sense of duty to his hostess’s 
guest. Certainly it was not to be near Vittoria 
Fleming that he had come. Why come at all, then, 
since there were none of the ordinary amusements 
to be had near Cedar Hill ? She shook her head and 
gave up wondering, but she could not dismiss the 
man so easily as that. He meant, or had meant, too 
much to her. She saw his face, a little pale, and 
drawn into the hard, stern lines which his fierce 
effort at control had set upon it, and she saw his eyes, 
and quite suddenly there came back to her, like a 
remembered scent, or a vivid, never-forgotten pict- 

126 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


ure, the sensation of being lifted and carried in his 
arms and laid down upon the turf by the roadside. 
Involuntarily she closed her eyes, opened them again, 
and looked up into Blake’s face that was bent above 
her. It was still drawn into those hard, stern lines, 
but they were lines of anxiety and fear for her, and 
his eyes glowed and his breath came short and fast. 

Vittoria covered her eyes with her hand and shiv- 
ered a little. She was thoroughly frightened. Was 
all this to be gone over again ? Was that new-found 
control of hers, that power to forget, to put out of 
mind — was it to be made helpless all in an hour be- 
cause Richard Blake was once more near at hand ? 

“What shall I do?” she cried, once more aloud. 
“ I don’t know what to do.” This thing was stronger 
than she, and she knew it. In an instant it had swept 
her feeble defences away, as a resistless surge sweeps 
over and beats down an ill- made dike. Without 
some sure refuge she was lost now, indeed! 

But there was a refuge, true and tried and sure: a 
harbor, she said to herself, safe from all the storms 
that blow. Only she did not know yet what storms 
there are on these uncertain seas. She had come to 
a fork in the road, and one branch led home to 
Standish and the other east by south toward Beau- 
mont Temple’s stronghold. She turned her horse 
into the second branch, and quickened its pace to a 
gallop. 

The road was a narrow, winding road, with high 
banks at either side, and ragged hedgerows of hazel 
127 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and brier atop the banks. Here and there dwarf 
oaks leaned crooked branches down from above, 
and sometimes Vittoria had to bend her head and 
lean forward in the saddle to avoid them. The horse 
settled down to its stretching gallop with a little snort 
of pleasure, for it was fresh and needed the exercise. 

So she fled down through the hollow lane, and birds 
rose chattering before her, and once or twice a hare 
started up almost from under the horse’s hoofs. She 
made short work of the three miles, and almost be- 
fore Vittoria realized it she was mounting the long 
rise of Lone Tree Hill. 


XI 


THE PORT IN THE STORM 

T EMPLE himself came to meet her, for he had 
seen her approaching, and had called a stable- 
boy to take her horse. He cried : 

“My dear child, this is more than good of you! 
This is angelic! A gift from Heaven! Here was I 
lounging crossly about the place, smoking my pipe, 
and wishing that something nice would turn up. 
What good deed have I done that I should have my 
wish gratified in this fashion ?” 

He led her up to the deep side veranda which he 
had added to his old house, and which was, in reality, 
a sort of summer-room, enclosed by wire screens and 
set about with comfortable cane chairs, and with 
tables whereon lay newspapers and magazines. He 
lived here a great deal in the warm season, for the 
place had the breeze from three sides, and sometimes 
he locked the door which led into the house and did 
his work here. 

He said: “Like the well-known father, I saw you 
while you were yet afar off and ran to meet you. The 
fatted calf is even now being killed, and will presently 
appear in long glasses with ice clinking about in it. 
129 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Meanwhile, sit down and be as patient as you can !” 
He pulled forward a cane deck-chair with cushions 
tied upon it, but Vittoria would not sit down. She 
said: 

“No. Let me stand for a while. I came to tell 
you something.” She was a little pale, and her man- 
ner was strained and unnatural. The man’s heart 
sank within him, but he managed a smile that was not 
too unlike his kindly usual smile, and he said: 

“Out with it, then! Let’s have it over!” She 
said: 

“You — a few days ago, Beau, you asked me to 
marry you. And I asked for time to think it over.” 

“Yes,” said Beaumont Temple, under his breath. 
“Yes. I have hardly forgotten.” His face had 
turned very grave. 

“Well,” said she, “I have — If you still want me, 
Beau, I will marry you. I want to marry you. 
That’s all.” 

Temple gave a sudden cry of joy, and the blood 
rushed to his face, so that it was, for an instant, crim- 
son. Still, he held back. He demanded: 

“Freely, child ? You come to me freely — of your 
own will ? Pender hasn’t been at you ?” 

“Father has had nothing to do with it,” she said. 
“I come of my own will. Do you want me?” 

He did not say whether he wanted her or not, but 
his eyes were shining as she had never before seen 
them shine. He took a swift step toward her, his 
arms held out, and Vittoria never knew that she 

130 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


shrank a little back from him. He came another 
step forward, but abruptly halted, and said: 

“Hang that gardener! Must he cut my grass at 
this historic moment ?” The sound of a mowing- 
machine came to Vittoria’s ears, and she gave a 
little, hysterical laugh. She was conscious of a 
faint and vague sense of relief, but the moment was 
too full of strain for analysis. 

“What are the greatest and most wonderful 
words,” said Beau Temple, “in which gratitude and 
joy and triumph can be expressed ? I don’t know 
them. I seem to be tongue-tied. It is my trade to 
string words together, but they fail me now when I 
have sorest need of them. Oh, child, you have filled 
me too full! I cannot speak. 

“I shall try to make you happy,” he said. “That 
seems to be all I can say.” And Vittoria nodded 
gravely. She felt rather solemn and a little breath- 
less, for the die was cast now; but she also felt safe — 
and that was what she wanted. 

“I know you will do that, Beau,” said she. “I 
feel safe with you — so perfectly safe!” 

Even through the stress of his emotion the man was 
conscious of the rather odd choice of words and of 
the emphasis with which they were spoken. But 
he, too, was beyond analysis just then, swallowed up 
in contentment. 

The fatted calf was brought in tall glasses — 
ginger ale with a lemon skin coiled serpentlike in 
it — and Vittoria sat down in the cane arm-chair and 


10 


BIANCA'S DAUGHTER 


took her glass into both hands, making little purring 
noises over it like a cat with a saucer of milk. She 
had a passion for this beverage, and Temple never 
forgot to provide it on her rare visits. 

“I feel very cosey and domestic already, Beau,” 
she said. And the man beamed over her with such 
an air of absurd proprietorship that she broke into 
a fit of laughter and found it hard to stop. Temple 
saw the strain under which she was laboring, but it 
seemed to him not unnatural. She had done a brave 
thing to come there alone with her offer, and he could 
have gone down on his kness to her for it. With the 
very laudable and unselfish aim of sparing the girl 
by turning the conversation to less personal things, 
he asked if the Farings had arrived at Cedar Hill, 
and she said: 

“Oh yes, they arrived yesterday. I’ve just come 
from there. I rode over to say a word of welcome.” 
He asked if they had brought down any guests, and, 
after a moment, Vittoria said: 

“One — a man I met in New York. Mr. Blake.” 
But at that name Temple, who had been standing 
at a little distance, turned upon her sharply with an 
exclamation. 

“What? What was that?” 

She said the name again, but with his eyes upon 
her it was difficult, and she looked down into the glass 
that she held between her hands. 

“Mr. Blake — Richard Blake. I think I remember 
his saying — that he knew you.” Temple turned 
132 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


away again in silence, and took a turn up and down 
the porch with his hands clasped behind him. Once 
the girl looked up for an instant, and it seemed to her 
that his face betrayed astonishment and not a little 
concern. She wondered, but not greatly, for she was 
struggling hard for self-control. 

After a brief silence the man halted before her, and 
asked : 

“Do you know this Mr. — Blake very well ?” And 
Vittoria said: 

“No, not very well.” But upon that she took a 
quick breath, and said, hurriedly: 

“Beau, I shall — want you to help me a little. 
This Mr. — Richard Blake— I’m sorry he has come 
here, and I don’t want to have to see any more of him 
than can be helped. It sounds very ungrateful, be- 
cause Mr. Blake saved my life once when I had 
fallen from my horse in the Park and was being 
dragged. He happened to be near, and saved me. 
But — in spite of that — I can’t explain just now— 
Perhaps he will go back to town soon, anyhow. Then 
it will be all right. Meanwhile — ” 

“Meanwhile,” Temple interrupted, “you want to 
avoid him. Naturally! We’ll manage it somehow.” 
He took up his walk once more, back and forth across 
the broad porch, and he was frowning. Once or twice 
he spoke to himself, and Vittoria heard him say that 
something was “incredible,” but what it was he did 
not explain. He seemed oddly disturbed. 

There came from somewhere out of sight beyond 
133 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


the house the sound of a voice of curiously beautiful 
timbre, and then a little phrase of French song. 

“Who is that?” asked Vittoria. “What a lovely 
voice! Who is that singing?” And Temple again 
swung about with an exclamation, but this time of 
pleasure. He said: 

“Ah! I forgot to tell you. I too have a guest. 
He came yesterday, and in a manner very charac- 
teristic of him — out of the blue sky, as it were, with 
only a few hours’ warning. You have heard me 
speak of Raoul de Coucy, I’m sure. I knew him 
very well a long time ago in France, and whenever 
I go there, nowadays, I spend a fortnight with him. 
What has brought him to America I cannot imagine, 
but I am very grateful to whatever it may be, for 
I think there is no man living of whom I am 
fonder.” 

“De Coucy?” said Vittoria. “That is rather a 
tremendous name, isn’t it? — or, at least, used to be 
long ago. Only the other day I came upon a little 
book of Viollet-le-Duc’s about the Chateau.” 

“You must tell Raoul that,” said Temple. “He’ll 
be pleased because he is a perfectly authentic De 
Coucy and the last of the name, though, of course, the 
name has not been very important since — when 
was it, the early fifteenth century ? Still, as you say, 
it was tremendous once. They stood on an equality 
with kings. D’you know their motto ? 

“‘Roi ne suys, ne prince, ne due, ne comte aussi. 
Je suys le sire de Coucy.’ How’s that for feudal 
*34 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


arrogance ?” He went to the end of the porch, and 
called his friend’s name. 

“Raoul! Raoul! Viens ici, je te prie!” The 
beautiful voice answered him from a distance, and he 
turned back. He said: 

“I must warn you that De Coucy is entirely 
blind, but he’s very clever in getting about, and 
you’d hardly suspect his infirmity if you weren’t told 
of it.” 

A gray-haired man came round the corner of the 
house, walking slowly over the grass and twirling 
a little cane in his hand. He was attended by a 
servant, who moved close beside him and a step 
behind. The man carried a Panama hat in his left 
hand, for, although it was but late May, the weather 
had been for some weeks unseasonably warm, and 
the day was like July. He was a little more exquisite- 
ly dressed than any Anglo-Saxon man would have 
cared to be, not in the elder and formal French 
fashion, but in the style of the modern Parisian 
elkgant. He wore the serge lounge-suit of informal- 
ity, but the jacket fitted his slender waist like a 
woman’s jacket, and was of a deep violet hue. The 
pale tones of shirt and cravat and out-peeping 
pochette bespoke the genius of the well-known 
M. Charvet of the rue de la Paix, and his boots (with 
violet tops!) were of that peculiar flesh-colored tan 
which is never seen outside of Latin countries, and 
which seems to have been made out of the skin of a 
very pale mulatto. 


i35 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


The gray-haired man turned his face toward 
the screened porch as he rounded the corner, and 
called: 

“Me voici, mon vieux! Me void!” And it 
seemed to Vittoria that she had never heard a speak- 
ing voice, whether of man or of woman, that was so 
extraordinarily musical in timbre. It was as if it 
sang in saying the most casual words. The servant 
moved forward past his master, and held open the 
door into the porch. Vittoria saw that M. de 
Coucy’s little twirling stick just touched the lowest of 
the steps, as it were by accident, and then he came 
up them and into the porch without the slightest 
groping or hesitation. 

Beaumont Temple went to meet his friend, and 
took him by the arm. He said: 

“I am to have the pleasure and the rather extraor- 
dinary privilege of introducing two great houses — 
Corner and Coucy. Raoul, I have the honor to 
present you to Donna Vittoria Fleming, whose 
grandfather was the head of the Cornaro.” The 
Frenchman smiled, and extended his hand a little 
way. Vittoria saw that his face was almost as 
beautiful as his voice. It was lean and bore the 
marks of age, for the man was nearly sixty, but the 
features were of the most exquisite delicacy and the 
skin was as fine in texture as any woman’s. He 
wore a little mustache with the ends waxed and 
turned upward, and his gray hair was cut en brosse, 
but it was soft hair and lay back in short waves in- 
136 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


stead of bristling fiercely erect, as does the hair of 
so many Frenchmen. 

Vittoria put her hand in his, and he bent over 
and kissed it. He said, using the old ceremonious 
title as if the girl were perhaps her great-grand- 
mother : 

“ Illustrious madonna, I precipitate myself at your 
feet, and count it a very happy privilege.” 

“This is historic,” said Beaumont Temple, laugh- 
ing. “I feel a sense of extreme inadequacy to the 
occasion. There should have been red carpet and 
photographers. I am humiliated at my lack of fore- 
sight.” 

A servant approached just then to tell him that 
he was wanted at the telephone for a long-distance 
message, and he turned to go into the house. But 
he said over his shoulder: 

“Donna Vittoria knows all about your forebears, 
Raoul. She has been reading Viollet-le-Duc.” So 
he left the two together. The telephone message 
proved to be very bothersome, for it was from New 
York, and the communication, as so often happens 
with long-distance calls, was interrupted two or three 
times, and he had to wait for it to be made again. 
So in all he was detained for ten or fifteen minutes, 
and put badly out of temper. 

He returned to his guests full of apologies, but they 
seemed to be talking together rather gravely and with 
every appearance of mutual interest. They had 
changed from English, which De Coucy used well 
*37 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

enough but with some stiffness, to French, which 
Vittoria spoke very well indeed, having had French 
nurses and governesses. But as he rejoined them 
the girl rose, and said that she must be going home, 
for it was late. So he had her horse brought round, 
and put her up himself. They were out of earshot 
from the screened porch, and he asked : 

“ I hope you and De Coucy got on well ? He is 
rather a wonderful man when one comes to know 
him. I should like you two to like each other.” 
Vittoria seemed to give the matter a moment’s sober 
consideration, but after that she said: 

“I think we shall. I liked him, and I hope he 
liked me. He is very wise.” 

Temple wondered how she had had an oppor- 
tunity to find that out in fifteen minutes at the most, 
but there was no time to discuss it now, and he turned 
to more intimate matters, demanding to know when 
he was to see her next. 

“I would ride over to Standish this evening,” said 
he, “but that Raoul wants to talk over some affair 
of his with me. Shall it be to-morrow ?” 

She said: “Yes, to-morrow. Perhaps if I’m riding 
to-morrow afternoon I’ll call on you again. In any 
case, come in the evening!” Then she gave him her 
hand for a moment that prolonged itself somewhat 
beyond the necessities, and so rode away down the 
hill. 

But when she had gone Temple went back into the 
screened porch, and, since the horse and its rider were 

* 3 8 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

still in sight, he stood a little while looking after 
them. The Frenchman said, behind him: 

“That is a very lovely and charming young lady. 
And I think she is also very beautiful. Am I not 
right ? I wonder — ” He made an odd and pathetic 
gesture. He raised one hand and covered his eyes 
with it, as people do when they wish to shut out all 
vision for an effort of memory. He said: 

“She reminds me very much indeed, though in an 
inexplicable fashion, of another lovely lady whom 
I seem to have known long ago, but my memory 
fails me just now. Later on, when I am no longer 
thinking of it, the lady’s name and the circumstances 
will return to me. I remember only that she was 
very sweet and very charming, and that she was un- 
happy. This jeune fille also is unhappy. Why? 
Why is she unhappy ?” 

Temple swung about with an exclamation of 
amused astonishment. 

“Unhappy!” he cried. “Well, I trust she’s not 
that. She — ” He hesitated a moment, and a bit of 
color came into his cheeks. “She may have seemed 
a little — distraite to-day. That would be natural in 
view of certain circumstances — a little moved out of 
her usual calm, perhaps. But unhappy? Oh no! 

“She is unhappy,” said the Frenchman, in a tone 
of unstirred conviction. “I, who have no eyes to 
see, have other senses that are very keen. What 
is making that young lady unhappy ?” Temple 
drew a long breath, for the other man’s words chilled 
139 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


him — the words and his own confidence in De 
Coucy’s almost uncanny intuition. The blind man 
was seldom wrong. Unbidden, the thought of 
Richard Blake came before him, and he remembered 
Vittoria’ s words, remembered that she had ex- 
plained nothing — had spoken only, and very briefly, 
of her desire to see as little of the other man as she 
could. 

Richard Blake! That name meant a good deal to 
Temple, for he knew certain things that the girl did 
not know. So Vittoria had been meeting Richard 
Blake in New York, and now that young man would 
seem to have followed her back into the country. 
He reflected that it was he himself who had persuaded 
Pender Fleming to send his daughter to New York, 
and here was the outcome of it! She had found 
Richard Blake there. He, Beaumont Temple, who 
loved her, had brought that about. 

It seemed to him well-nigh uncanny. It seemed to 
him that there must be something preordained, fatal, 
in it all, and a sudden shiver wrung him despite the 
warm sunshine in which he stood. 

Richard Blake! 

Over the surface of his deeper concern came the 
question: “Why does she not wish to see the man ? 
Is she afraid, or does she dislike him? ,, He won- 
dered a little about that, but gave up wondering be- 
cause he could not possibly know unless Vittoria 
chose to tell him. 

A creaking movement of De Coucy’s chair recalled 
140 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


his attention, and he started, as one does in waking 
from a reverie. He said: 

“I beg your pardon, Raoul; my thoughts wan- 
dered. What was it you asked ?” 

“I asked,” said the Frenchman, “what it was that 
is making Mademoiselle Fleming unhappy ? But 
perhaps you cannot tell.” 

“No,” said Beaumont Temple, in a low voice; 
“no, my friend, I cannot tell. I didn’t know. It is 
very bitter to me to think that she may be unhappy, 
for her happiness means a great deal to me. I hope 
to marry Miss Fleming, Raoul.” 

The blind Frenchman sprang to his feet, his hands 
outstretched before him, his face full of tenderness 
and of pain. 

“Ah, mon vieux! mon vieux!” he cried. “For- 
give me. I didn’t know. And I didn’t mean what 
I said. Mon cher ami, I am an imbecile.” 

Temple regarded him with a wry smile. 

“With all my heart I hope so, Raoul,” said he. 


XII 


DONNA BIANCA 

V ITTORIA rode slowly home under the noon- 
day sun. It was hot and still, but she was not 
uncomfortable. She was unaware of external things. 
A little ragged admiring boy from one of the neigh- 
boring farms saluted her, sitting by the roadside, 
with a “Mornin’, ma’am!” but she did not hear him. 
A wagon clattered by, raising a cloud of dust in 
which her horse tossed its head and sneezed, but 
Vittoria was unconscious of discomfort. Her at- 
tention was within. 

Arrived at Standish, she found that it was almost 
luncheon-time, and so, after a very hasty toilette, went 
down to the table without changing out of her riding- 
skirt. Greatly to her relief, Pender Fleming did not 
appear. He often lunched alone in the room where 
he had spent most of his waking hours for the past 
twenty years, and on such occasions he merely sent 
word that he would not be at the table, without 
giving any reason for it. Vittoria sometimes won- 
dered what the reason might be, but Pender was not 
the sort of man of whom one asks unnecessary ques- 
tions, and, besides, she did not much care. Her 
142 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


father’s presence at the table was so silent and 
funereal a presence that, without being quite aware 
of it, she was glad when he stayed away. 

The state of terror and excitement in which she had 
rushed from Cedar Hill to throw herself, as it were, 
at Beau Temple’s head was gone from her entirely, 
and her mind was altogether occupied with what she 
had done, and the definite and irrevocable step she 
had taken. She was not sorry for her action, though 
she wished it could have been managed in some less 
headlong fashion. She was glad of it. But few 
people take a step which is to decide the whole future 
course of their lives without finding themselves beset 
by some qualms— fears — doubts — some rather terrify- 
ing sense of the finality of what they have done. 
Vittoria felt a curious and, in its intensity, unpre- 
cedented sense of loneliness. It seemed to her that 
she was quite pathetically alone, that she had no 
one to go to for counsel or sympathy at this time when, 
of all times, she needed a shoulder to weep upon, 
though there was nothing to weep for. She was, by 
nature as well as by force of circumstances, a very 
self- reliant young person, but she found herself 
suddenly quite limp and miserable, and she thought 
she would like to cry, and she was conscious of a bit- 
terly passionate longing for her mother. More than 
ever before in her life, more than all the other times 
put together, she wanted a mother to cling to. 

She finished the uncheerful, solitary meal, and after- 
ward took a book — the Pragmatism of Professor 
143 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


William James — out upon the shaded terrace, where 
she had a comfortable deck - chair. She remained 
there until late afternoon, then made her slow way 
up toward her own chamber; but on the stairs the 
housekeeper, a stout, red-cheeked woman of middle 
age, halted her with a question. Plumbers were at 
work in the house, it appeared, and, in tracing the 
course of some leaking water-pipes along the attic 
floor, found themselves halted by a small storeroom 
to which the housekeeper found she had no key. 

“The key must have been lost some way, Miss 
Vittory, ,, she apologized. “I can’t think how, and 
I don’t like to bother the master to find out if he has 
one. Do you think we might take the door off its 
hinges ? The room’s of no importance. I just 
remember that there’s trunks and boxes and such in 
it — from away back. The men could put the door 
back in good order once they’ve found out about the 
pipes.” Vittoria nodded indifferently, saying: 

“Oh yes, I dare say. It can do no harm, I should 
think. I’ll go up with you, if you like.” She was 
pathetically glad of the chance to give her mind to 
any such trifle. 

“Ah now, that ’d be real kind of you, miss,” the 
housekeeper said. “It takes the blame of it off my 
shoulders like. We sha’n’t be long.” 

They found the working-men in the dim attic at 
bay before the locked door. Vittoria gave them 
permission to go on, and they very soon had the door 
off its hinges and set aside. The room within was 
144 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


very dusty, for no one had been there in years, and 
it smelled of long confinement and of the dust and of 
dry decay. At one end were a number of pieces of 
furniture — bedroom furniture it seemed, half con- 
cealed under covers of linen — and about the floor 
stood trunks of an old design, and packing-cases, and 
ornamental jars of Chinese porcelain, and various 
other decorative ornaments. It was as if an entire 
room — a bedroom very luxuriously fitted — had 
been stripped long ago and its contents locked up 
here. 

Vittoria glanced about her with a faint and absent 
surprise. The significance of these things did not 
reach her dulled sensibilities at all. But the house- 
keeper looked at her swiftly, and away again, pursing 
up her broad lips in a grotesque and soundless 
whistle. The woman had not been above ten years 
in that house, but she must have heard servants’ and 
neighborhood gossip, and she must at this moment 
have had her surmises. 

A number of large paintings in tarnished frames 
were stacked at one side of the room, face to wall, 
and one of the workmen, burrowing about his 
business, dislodged this stack so that the outermost 
canvas fell over upon its back on the floor. Vittoria, 
in a mood of idle curiosity, stepped forward to see 
what the painting might be, but, when she saw it, 
gave a sudden low cry of sheer amazement, and stood 
staring. The red - cheeked housekeeper moved up 
behind her mistress’s shoulder, looked, and also 
145 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


cried out. The picture on the floor appeared to be a 
life-sized portrait, very finely rendered, of Miss Vit- 
toria Fleming. It might have been painted yes- 
terdays the week before, or the month, but not prior 
to the girl’s advent in New York and her discovery 
of the infinite possibilities in the matter of garments 
and hair-dressing. 

“Whoever can it be, miss ?” the red-cheeked house- 
keeper cried at last, amazement and something like 
fear in her protruded eyes. “Lord save us, miss! 
Whoever can it be ?” 

“It is my mother,” said the girl, without emotion. 
“ My mother, who died nearly twenty years ago. . . . 
Ask two of these men, please, to carry it down to my 
room.” The woman turned and stared at her 
fearsomely. 

“But the master, miss!” she said, whispering, as if 
Pender Fleming might lurk behind trunk or packing- 
box. 

“What will he say, miss ?” she protested. Vittoria’s 
eyebrows went up a very little. 

“ Please ask two of these men to carry the portrait 
down to my room,” she said again, and the woman 
turned and gave the order. 

Below, in her great square chamber that looked 
to west and south, she locked the door, and, slightly 
dampening a towel, wiped the painted canvas free 
of the dust of twenty years. The working-men, under 
her direction, had set the portrait across the arms of 
a huge colonial chair, so that it leaned securely 
146 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


against the chair’s back. It was near the westward 
windows, and the low late sun shone mildly in upon 
it, touching the colors with life and fire. 

The woman in the picture sat upon a carved oak 
settle, leaning forward out of her tarnished frame, 
one very perfect arm laid along the back of the settle, 
the other across her knees. She was dressed in a 
satin evening - gown of yellowish ivory tones, and 
there was nothing in the costume to indicate the 
fashion of any particular period. It was very plain, 
with long, sweeping lines that clung to or followed 
the woman’s figure. Also her hair was not done in 
the fashion of her day, but in a style oddly similar 
to that which Catharine Dudley’s coiffeur had 
decided upon for Vittoria Fleming, and which lent 
to that maiden a part of her striking resemblance to 
the celebrated operatic lady. 

Beyond this, the likeness between Donna Bianca 
Fleming, who sat in her gilded frame, and Donna 
Vittoria, her daughter, who knelt upon the floor be- 
fore it, was amazing. The girl might have been 
looking into a mirror. 

In the year ’84 the world lost a great genius when 
a certain young Polish painter was killed in a rail- 
way accident between Paris and Versailles. His 
name is forgotten now, for in quantity the sum 
of his work was small, but for the two or three 
years before his death he was probably the most 
conspicuous figure living in the field of portrai- 
ture. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he painted 
H7 


11 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


very boldly, with an effect of bravura such as one may 
see in Franz Hals long before and in Mr. John 
Sargent at the present day. But the Pole did more. 
It used to be said of him, as of Herr Lenbach, that 
he reduced his conception of a subject to a single idea 
— to a single expressive word, as it were — and so 
painted a mantle of flesh and drapery round this 
conception. Certainly the portraits which he left 
behind him seem to bear out the tale, and, among 
them, none bears it out more astonishingly than the 
last portrait which came from his brush. 

In Bianca Fleming the Pole seems to have seen one 
thing above all things, and that thing spoke, after 
twenty years, from the painted canvas with a flame- 
like vividness which was poignant beyond words — 
a passionate prayer for life and love and happiness. 
In the mother the Pole saw and realized and painted 
it, in the daughter Richard Blake saw it with his 
first glance, and feared for it and thrilled to it — 
Bianca Cornaro’s heritage to her child. 

Vittoria, kneeling on the floor close beside the big 
arm-chair, looked into the beautiful face of the mother 
who had come to her, as it were, by a miracle, and 
a sort of silent speech seemed to pass between the 
two — speech more intimate than any spoken words 
could possibly be. And after a little while the girl 
laid her arms out upon the seat of the chair, bent her 
head over them and began to weep, but not for grief 
— the tears that come to women and to children in 
time of stress, bringing blessed relief and comfort 
148 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and peace. For tears are much more literally a 
safety-valve than most people know. 

But when she had done with her pleasant and com- 
fortable weeping — had sobbed away, as it were, all 
strain and nervous excitement — Vittoria raised her 
head once more to meet her mother’s eyes. She 
was amazed beyond all expression at the astonishing 
resemblance between Donna Bianca and herself, 
for that was something she had not been prepared 
for. And she was touched by it too. It seemed to 
create at once a sort of intimacy between them. 
She realized that if her mother had proved to be an 
altogether different type of woman, however lovely, 
she could not have felt for her the immediate sense 
of sympathy and kinship with which her heart was 
now overflowing. Her joy had still the keen edge 
of pain, because now, more than ever before, she 
realized what the two might have been to each other 
if Donna Bianca had lived, but she was too glad to 
regret very much — too overcome by gratitude at the 
miracle which had befallen her. 

She sat back upon her heels and looked a long 
time, with a soft and tender gravity, into the eyes of 
the woman in the portrait. A fanciful conviction 
began to grow in her that her mother was trying to 
speak, she leaned forward so eagerly from her 
tarnished frame, her eyes were so wistful, her red 
lips parted in the very beginning of speech. 

It was not at all as absurd as it sounds, for almost 
any one will become seized by that eerie sensation if 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


he stands a long time before a well-rendered portrait 
whose subject is not at rest, but in a pose of ani- 
mation. Vittoria, without knowing it, was slowly 
hypnotizing herself by one of the most common- 
place methods, and as she knelt there, looking into 
her mother’s eyes, she became very still until she 
was almost rigid, her gaze became more and more 
fixed and immovable, and her face took on an eager, 
receptive expression — the expression of one who 
listens very intently — until it was drawn in lines that 
were almost painful. It seemed to her, in so far as she 
was capable of thought, that, if she waited and waited 
and listened and was still, those eager, parted lips 
must at last speak to her — tell her what it was they 
so longed to tell — the secret behind her mother’s 
shadowy, wistful eyes. And once her own lips parted 
for a brief sound of whispered speech. She said: 

“Oh, what is it? What is it you want to say to 
me ?” So they sat there together, these two women 
who were so astonishingly alike, and the strange 
semblance of a silent speech passed between them, 
while the sunlight died away, and the sunset colors 
paled from the west, and twilight stole into the room. 
Once a servant knocked at the door, asking if her 
mistress would come down to dinner, but Vittoria 
did not answer. It is doubtful if she even heard. 

And so twilight deepened to dusk, and imper- 
ceptibly the night came on. Then, when it was 
dark and eyes could no longer see, Bianca Fleming 
left her tarnished frame and crept closer to the 
150 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


daughter who knelt waiting, closer in the enveloping 
darkness — a warm and fragrant presence, a very 
human woman whose soul, as Vittoria knew after- 
ward, had cried out for love and understanding, and 
who, in the end, had had the courage to take love 
to her heart in the face of a contemptuous world. 


XIII 


IN THE WALLED GARDEN 

E ARLY on the next morning Vittoria, accom- 
panied by the faithful and sympathetic Mr. 
Hennessy, went for a walk. She had had rather a 
bad night, obsessed by dreams beautiful and thrilling 
and cruelly sweet. That does not sound like a very 
bad night, but the dreams were forbidden dreams, 
and the dim remembrance of them remained to 
haunt and frighten her after sleep was done. She 
had, moreover, two or three matters to think of, and 
it was her habit to save up such things — like a dog 
with a bone — until she could take them out into the 
open solitude and there go over them carefully. Most 
women do that. 

There was first, of course, the matter of Richard 
Blake, and of what was to be done about him if he 
chose to remain in the neighborhood. And, secondly, 
there was the matter of that curious little revulsion of 
feeling, the instinctive shrinking from Beau Temple 
on the day before, when she thought he was going to 
take her in his arms and kiss her. She had been 
unaware at the time that the feeling had expressed 
itself in action, but afterward, when she thought of it, 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


she wondered if she had not really drawn away from 
him — as, indeed, she had; for the feeling had been 
quite strong enough for that. It puzzled and a little 
alarmed her. She had never shrunk from him be- 
fore, not even when, in imagination, she had looked 
forward to their marriage, and she wondered why 
that sudden and strong sense of repulsion should have 
swept and mastered her. Also she wished to reflect 
at leisure upon Temple’s friend, the blind French- 
man with the beautiful face and the singing voice. 
She thought that she had never met or seen any one 
in the least like him, and the man interested her very 
much. He would have interested her for his own 
peculiar qualities — the old-fashioned courtesy, and 
the color of romance, and the sound sweetness of him 
— quite apart from the oddly intimate conversation 
into which the two had fallen during Temple’s 
absence in the house, but the conversation was so 
uncommon that it was unforgetable. It is not usual 
for strangers — an old man and a young girl — to begin 
to discuss the meaning of life within ten minutes of 
their introduction. Vittoria had tried to remember 
how it was, by what chance word, the talk had fallen 
upon such lines, but that had gone from her. She 
remembered only what they had said afterward, 
how she had quoted a phrase from a book recently 
read, to the effect that life at its best is but a series of 
compromises. And she remembered how De Coucy 
had cried out upon that: 

“Ah no, mademoiselle! Not for you who are 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


young and have life before you! We old ones have 
lost all that we had through that. Never compromise, 
mademoiselle! Never compromise! That sort of 
wisdom is cowardice. Be brave! Take your life 
into your hands and go forward. Do not make 
compromises !” 

It was strange advice for an old man who had 
lived long in the world to give to a young girl whose 
life, as he said, was all before her, but the blind 
Frenchman gave it very seriously and without hes- 
itation. And it remained in the girl’s mind, word 
for word, and troubled her a little. 

So she went out upon the hills alone with the little 
Irish terrier, taking these three matters with her to 
reflect upon, but, important to her as they were, she 
found it extraordinarily difficult to focus her mind 
upon them. She found herself in a state of mental 
apathy — not the apathy of fatigue, but of pleasant 
and lazy inaction. It was a very beautiful morning, 
sunny and bright, but cooled by a little gentle west 
wind. Vittoria stood still on the hill-slopes and filled 
her lungs with that sweet and aromatic air, pungent 
with the breath of balsam pine from a near-by grove. 
She stretched out her strong young arms to the 
splendor of the perfect day, and was conscious of a 
state of extravagant bodily well-being. She had no 
desire to walk any farther, and anything like mental 
effort was profoundly distasteful, even to contemplate. 
If she had been a cat she would have found a very 
comfortable place in the grass, and she would have 
i54 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


lain down there, tucked her fore - paws under, and 
purred. Not being a cat, she turned about and began 
to walk slowly homeward, and she dismissed from 
mind the three important matters upon which she had 
come out to reflect as easily and as completely as 
if they had been the three most trivial things in the 
world. 

She seems to have summed up her mood rather 
neatly in a single observation which, as they saun- 
tered along toward Standish, she made to Mr. 
Hennessy. She said: 

“I wish I were a man and could smoke a pipe.” 

When she reached home she went toward the 
kennels, with the vague idea of letting all the dogs 
out at once, just to see what would happen. But 
presently she thought better of that, and turned 
away. She went on past the house and into the 
gardens, which lay to the westward. They were 
rather large gardens and exceedingly well kept, in 
an informal, old-fashioned way. The head gardener, 
who was a Bavarian, took much pride in his work, 
though his master never seemed to be aware that 
there were any gardens on the place at all. 

Vittoria went in between the two rough stone 
gate-posts and down the neatly kept, box-bordered 
path to the central pool, which was fed by a spring, 
and overflowed in three little waterfalls into another 
pool on the broad terrace below. She stood a 
moment by the stone margin of the pool, and a score 
of little goldfish came and stared at her with big 
155 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


eyes, thinking they were about to be fed. Mr. 
Hennessy backed away, growling resentfully, for 
he had once been beaten for fishing, and Vittoria 
laughed at him, and they went on round the water, 
and so by a trellised path to the lower level, and 
finally to the girl’s own special property, the little 
enclosure shut in from all the rest by high brick 
walls. 

The ancient walls were crumbling and the iron 
gate hung awry, but within all manner of delectable 
things grew in a tangle (to the Bavarian’s despair), 
and there was a fountain with a broken spout and a 
cracked stone margin, there were two benches sadly 
overgrown with moss, and there was even a sun-dial 
which a certain sleek and pensive tabby cat had 
chosen to sun herself upon. The enclosure hung 
upon the brow of an out-thrust spur of that plateau 
whereon the house and garden of Standish were 
perched, and from its farther wall the ground dropped 
away gently to the plain below. One saw a portion 
of the distant straggling village, with its three church 
towers, and the line of the railway. 

Vittoria broke off a bud from one of the early 
roses which were just coming untimely into flower, 
and looked down upon herself for a place to fasten it; 
but there were no buttonholes in front, and she had 
no pins save those urgently employed. In the end 
she stuck it in her hair behind one ear, and im- 
mediately looked more than ever before like the 
well-known operatic lady — in the role of Carmen. 

156 


BIANCA'S DAUGHTER 


She sat down upon one of the mossy benches and 
pulled off her flappy hat, for she was in shade there 

the shade of a tall cedar of Lebanon which grew 
just outside the old brick wall and leaned obligingly 
inward. 

Mr. Hennessy, doglike, rushed from corner to 
corner of the place and worked himself up into quite 
a fever of zeal over some imaginary quest, but the 
quest seemed to come to nothing, for as suddenly as 
he had begun it he gave over, and remained for a 
long time quite still and rigid at the foot of the 
sun-dial, glaring up at the somnolent tabby cat, who 
blinked contemptuously back at him. But Vittoria 
made herself very comfortable in one corner of the 
stained old bench, and closed her eyes in a placid 
content very like the tabby cat’s. The same mood 
of pleasant apathy of which she had been con- 
scious earlier was still upon her. It is an afternoon 
feeling, really — a summer afternoon feeling — and 
everybody knows it perfectly well; but it came to 
Vittoria in the morning, and she was so peaceful and 
contented that she no longer even wished to be a man 
with a pipe to smoke. 

The air was both warm and cool together, and as 
soft as perfumed silk; there was no sound from any- 
where save the little plashing sound of the water as 
it dropped down in miniature cascades from pool to 
pool, and at times the far - away lowing of a cow. 
But abruptly, in the midst of that gentle peace, Mr. 
Hennessy growled, faced about toward the gate, and 
157 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


growled again. After a moment he advanced a few 
stern paces and began to bark. Vittoria opened her 
eyes and said: “Bother! Who’s coming?” 

It was not the old gardener, for Mr. Hennessy 
allowed that faithful being to come and go without 
comment, so she thought it must be Beau Temple. 
At first she was aware of a faint regret — the wish that 
he hadn’t come — a feeling that she was not quite 
ready for Temple; but no sooner had the feeling made 
itself known than, to put the thing fancifully, she 
flew at it, denying it with a quite disproportionate 
anger. She said that she was always ready for 
Beau — always! Always eager and glad of him. 

Footsteps came down the gravel path, crisp and 
firm, so then she was sure it was Temple, and called 
to the terrier. 

“Hennessy, stop that noise! Don’t be a little 
fool!” She heard a laugh, the crazy iron gate swung 
open, and Richard Blake came into her garden. 

She knew that she gave a little smothered cry, 
and afterward she knew that it had been a glad cry, 
coming from somewhere very deep within her, deep 
down under those feelings over which her conscious- 
ness held sway — the bottom of the well, perhaps. 
And so it may be that the sweet enchantment of those 
forbidden dreams was still faintly upon her. It 
may be that the mood of the morning had been a sort 
of preparation for this meeting — had softened her 
for it. 

She got to her feet, and Blake held her hand in 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


his — so she must have put it out toward him. From 
a great distance she heard him explaining how he 
had been in the near neighborhood on a morning’s 
exploration, and, despite the hour, had dared take 
advantage of her permission to call. Vaguely she 
heard him say that he had been sent down from the 
house by the stable-boy who had taken the horse, 
and had seen his mistress go into the gardens; and, 
vaguely still, she heard him say civil things about 
her roses; but the words meant very little to her — 
half-heard phrases when the mind is elsewhere. 

While her voice repeated, machinelike, the cus- 
tomary banalities in answer — “Do you think so? 
. . . Yes, we find it pretty,” or such like nonsense — it 
seemed to her that, within, she was struggling for 
tangible grasp upon the realities — the new realities 
— which bounded and determined her life. And it 
seemed to be curiously difficult to reach them. By 
all obvious rights and settled determinations she 
should have met Mr. Richard Blake with a cool 
and distant and very discouraging indifference — not 
with frozen anger as on the day previous, only with 
indifference, but there was no force in her to compel 
the mood. Rather, perhaps, there was nothing in the 
man to evoke it — or perhaps it was both these things. 

He faced her with grave and tender eyes — eyes 
that she had seen twice before, once in a ball-room 
and once in a park, and she had never forgotten them 
as they were, with that look in them, and she knew 
that she never would forget them, however hard she 
159 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


might try and however long she might live. The 
man’s bearing completed upon her the enchantment 
which those forbidden dreams had begun, the sweet 
and fragrant morning had continued. She could not 
meet him with indifference. Still, for one brief in- 
stant, she faced something like peril and knew it for 
what it was, but she closed her eyes and thrust the 
thing away — rather furtively. She said to herself 
that there was no peril for her. Was she not safe 
from all perils — at anchor in a still harbor? She 
leaned upon the thought of her engagement (rather 
hastily to change the metaphor) as upon a firm rock, 
immovable in its security. 

She became aware that neither she nor Blake was 
speaking, and she flushed and made a brief sound of 
laughter. 

“Why don’t you say something?” she demanded. 
“Haven’t you any conversation at all ?” And at that 
he echoed her laughter and said: 

“I talked prodigiously a few moments ago, but 
you had the air of paying no attention to me, so I 
decided that I must have interrupted a train of 
thought and I was abashed. Were you thinking of 
something very interesting when I burst in upon you 
here ?” She shook her head after an instant’s 
reflection. 

“No. I don’t think I was thinking at all. I 
think I was just purring. Was I absent-minded with 
you ? That’s very rude, and I apologize. Probably 
I was half asleep when you came.” She sat down 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


again in one corner of the moss-grown bench, but the 
man remained standing before her and Mr. Hennessy 
stood near, fixing the stranger with a stern and dis- 
trustful eye. 

“I’m very glad,” Blake said, “to see you at last 
with your own surroundings — here at Standish. 
Do you remember telling me about Standish when 
we first met ?” 

“Yes,” said she, nodding. “Yes, I remember — 
at that dance. I seem to remember that I was 
rather solemn and absurd. I don’t quite know 
why.” 

“I don’t seem to remember that,” he answered, 
“though my memory is good. I remember that I 
wanted to hear a good deal more, but — I saw you so 
few times.” 

That was an unfortunate thing to say, and he 
regretted it almost before the words were out. It 
brought a flush to his cheeks and a frown to his brows, 
but Vittoria did not see, because she kept her eyes 
down. She spread her two hands out upon her lap 
and regarded them carefully, as if for some reason she 
were critical of them, but the man’s speech left her 
unembarrassed and unafraid, and she was mildly 
surprised at herself. 

“Three times altogether,” said she, “not count- 
ing yesterday. I refuse to count yesterday, because 
I was in a vile humor and probably insulted you. 
Didn’t I ?” 

She looked up at him for a swift instant, but at 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


once looked down again, because, even now, she could 
not meet his eyes quite calmly. 

“And that brings me to something IVe never had 
a chance to say — well, yes, I had a chance yesterday; 
but then that vile humor, you see! I’ve never had 
a chance to say how very grateful I was, and am, for 
what you — what you did for me. You really saved 
my life, you know. Of course, men hate to be thank- 
ed. I know that — but I can’t let you go on thinking 
that I took it too lightly — didn’t realize how serious 
it was. If I’d seen you afterward — ” She broke 
off there, because she was getting back to that 
dangerous matter of the man’s deliberate neglect, 
and she looked up and, as it were, finished her 
sentence with a smile. But she looked no higher 
than Blake’s chin. 

He made a little movement before her. She had 
the odd impression that he was “squaring himself,” 
as the phrase goes — spreading his feet for a firmer 
stand, as if he were on board ship in a seaway. He 
said : 

“ May I explain something to you ?” He went on 
rather hastily, and without waiting for an answer, 
as if he were afraid of being stopped : 

“When I left you that day in the Park — when you 
rode away with Monty Bellingham, and I went back 
home — I fully expected to call at Mrs. Dudley’s in 
the afternoon. I meant to let nothing in the world 
interfere. Well, about four o’clock I had a telephone 
message from an old aunt of mine, asking me to come 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


at once to her house on a matter of great importance. 
I went there, still expecting to go on at once to Mrs. 
Dudley’s, but I found my aunt, who is a nervous old 
soul, frightfully worried about some absurd business 
matter that her lawyers had communicated to her. 
It took me nearly two hours to convince her that she 
wasn’t on the verge of complete ruin. Well, then I 
rushed to your house — to Mrs. Dudley’s — hoping that 
I might still find you, but I was told that you and Mrs. 
Dudley had gone up to dress because you were dining 
early — for the theatre. The next morning the same 
legal tangle that my aunt had got into took me to 
Washington, and there I stuck for a week or more. 
The day after I returned to town I went early to the 
Farings, with the idea of going on to you at a more 
respectable hour. Beatrix told me that you had left 
for Standish. And so that’s why I never saw you 
again. Please say you understand!” 

Vittoria remained with her head bent, still look- 
ing down at her two hands outspread in her lap, 
and she did not answer at once. But presently she 
said: 

“Of course I understand. It’s plain enough. But 
you speak as if I’d been attacking you — browbeating 
you for not coming to call upon me. I haven’t, have 
I ? You speak as if I’d been accusing you of stay- 
ing away on purpose.” She spoke in that perfectly 
colorless tone which people use when they are trying 
to hide what they really feel, and the man gave a 
sudden exclamation that was almost like a cry. It 

13 163 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


seemed to be the outburst of something intolerable. 
His hands moved stiffly for a moment at his sides, 
and he put them behind him, and gripped them 
together there. 

“I did stay away from you on purpose !” he said, 
and at that Vittoria finally looked up to him, at first 
with sheer astonishment in her eyes, afterward with 
a still gravity. And she did not take her eyes away. 
His face was as it had been when he saw her in danger, 
when she had opened her eyes and seen it bent close 
over her. 

“I did stay away from you on purpose !” he said 
again, and she knew that he was speaking words 
torn from him by sheer stress of feeling — true words 
that he had tried not to speak. 

“Not then,” he said. “Not that last time — that 
couldn’t be helped — but before. I didn’t dare see 
you. I thought that if I made myself stay away I 
would forget you. I was a fool! I was a fool! I 
knew in the very beginning — in that first hour I 
knew what you — were to me — must always be, but I 
fought against it. I wouldn’t confess the truth even 
to myself. I wanted to be free. I was a fool!” He 
threw out his arms, open, in a queer, awkward 
gesture, and he was breathing hard. 

“Surely you knew!” he said. “You saw. You 
understood. Women — they always know these — 
You knew why I stayed away ?” He began to 
tremble quite absurdly, but it did not seem absurd 
to him, for he stood cold and shaken and frightened, 
164 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


like a man half-anaesthetized, or who has received 
a violent blow. He had not in the least meant to 
come to ultimate conclusions with this headlong 
abruptness. The words had said themselves. Out 
of a moment’s despair, at what he conceived to be her 
unbelief, they had burst prodigiously — without in- 
tention, without plan, without coherence — rather 
like the bursting of a dam. He stood among the 
surge of them, aghast at what he had done. 

Vittoria got to her feet before him, white -faced, 
with burning eyes. She did not know that she had 
made a movement. She was conscious only of some 
bewilderment and of a strange physical distress. The 
air had become suddenly hard to breathe, so that she 
gasped for it a little, and she had the sensation of 
being bathed in something powerfully electrical. It 
was not pleasant at all; it was painful, and rather 
terrifying. But through that fiery haze she heard 
the man’s voice, flat and unnatural in tone. He 
said again — or the words said themselves: 

“You knew why I stayed away?” And Vittoria 
answered him: 

“No! ... I was a fool too. ... I didn’t know.” 
She wrung her hands. 

‘‘I didn’t know!” she said. “Oh, I didn’t know!” 

Blake cried her name twice, and he took a step 
toward her, with outstretched arms. Fie was so 
near that one hand touched her. There seemed to 
be something magical in the mere physical contact, 
for quite suddenly that fiery cloaking mist which had 
165 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


enveloped the girl was rent away and she saw where 
she was. She shrank back from him, and, when he 
would have followed her, held up her hands to stop 
him. She said, in a stumbling, breathless whisper: 

“No! No! Please stay where you are! . . . Wait!” 
She turned away and stood for a little space with her 
face bowed over upon her hands. The man waited, 
immovable. It was as if he had been frozen there 
— turned to stone. 

Then, after a pause, Vittoria began to speak, hur- 
riedly still, but without excitement. And she re- 
mained with her back toward him. She said: 

“I should have told you — I meant to tell you, but 
you — all this came so suddenly — before I knew. I 
didn’t realize what you were going to say. I am — 
engaged to be married to Beaumont Temple. I 
told him definitely, yesterday, that I would marry 
him, and I shall keep my word.” She turned half 
about, and her head, with its dark hair and the rose- 
bud against it, was uplifted proudly, but she did not 
look at Richard Blake. She said: 

“I love him. I want you to understand that. I 
want to marry him. I shall be very, very happy all 
my life. I have known him always, and I trust him 
and respect him more than any one else in the world 
— and love him. I am proud to love him. . . . I — 
please — ” She clasped her hands hard before her, 
and looked away. 

“I am sorry — sorrier than I can say, to have let 
you say what you did. It seems cruel, but I truly 
1 66 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


didn’t know. I give you my word that I didn’t 
know. I had been — hurt by your staying away from 
me in New York, and I was glad, so glad, to hear you 
say that — that you — to explain why it was — that you 
had gone further than I should have let you go be- 
fore I quite realized. I wish I thought you could 
forgive me.” 

She took a few steps away, and stood before one 
of the rose-bushes. She began to break off the leaves 
and even the young buds from the top of the bush, 
but she did not in the least realize what she was 
doing. Mr. Hennessy came to her feet and began to 
whine. He knew that his lady was, in some obscure 
fashion, troubled, and his Irish heart was wrung with 
sympathetic woe. When she did not even look down 
to him he elevated his nose and emitted one long, 
dolorous howl. Then Vittoria hushed him and 
turned back. 

Blake seemed not to have moved from his place, 
but his outstretched hands he had lowered and 
clasped again behind him. From his face the girl 
could tell nothing of what he might be thinking. 
He had not a great range of facial expression — 
quite the reverse, in fact. His eyes could be very 
eloquent: they could be cold and hard, with little 
glittering lights in them; or they could turn soft and 
very tender — and at such times they seemed to become 
darker than they really were and full of shadows; or, 
in certain moods, they could blaze with a sort of 
sombre fury that was as terrible as it was happily 
167 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


rare. But, apart from his eyes, the man’s face ex- 
pressed singularly little. In moments of stress it became 
very slightly pale and somewhat drawn and rather for- 
bidding, though the stress might be of any kind at all. 

Vittoria watched him anxiously, and waited for him 
to speak. And after a still moment, he said: 

“Was there never any chance for me, then ?” 

“There was, once,” said she. “But you wouldn’t 
take it.” And at that he gave an exceedingly bitter 
cry, and covered his face with his hands. Afterward 
he said to her: 

“I cannot give you up. It is impossible — un- 
thinkable. I have behaved throughout — from the 
beginning — like a madman, and I deserve to lose 
you, but I cannot face it. It’s too much to me — 
everything — all my world! At least, I have loved 
you. Though I behaved like a lunatic, I have loved 
you from the first moment I ever saw you, and I 
cannot give up hope. I can no more give up hoping 
than I can give up breathing. It’s impossible. 

“I am quite aware,” he said, “that most people 
would call it dishonorable for me to say these things 
to you when you have told me that you are engaged to 
marry another man, but it cannot harm you. It can- 
not possibly do you any harm to know that I love you, 
andhave loved you all the little time I have known you.” 

Vittoria listened with uplifted face and closed eyes, 
her hands at her breast. It was the sweet, forbidden 
dreams come true. In her dream Blake had said 
that he loved her, that all the long period of neglect 
1 68 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and seeming scorn had been a hideous mistake, and 
now he was saying it in the waking life, under the 
golden morning sun, and she could no more help 
thrilling to his words — exulting in them — than in 
those enchanted dream hours. 

But when Blake’s voice ceased she came to herself 
with a sudden start and opened her eyes. He was 
not looking at her; his head was bent, and his eyes 
fixed upon the ground before him. 

She said: 

“I’m not offended with you. In a sense — I’m 
glad to know. Both glad and sorry, perhaps. But 
there mustn’t — we mustn’t speak of it any more, 
must we ? You must not make it hard for me.” 
She said most of the trite and banal things that 
women, at such times, find to say — things well enough 
intentioned, meant to comfort: that he must try 
to forget her, put love for her out of his heart, go 
back to his busy, pleasant life. But the man shook 
his head sadly, saying: 

“I think you know that I’m not the forgetting 
kind. It would be impossible.” For an instant he 
awoke again to that fierce rebellion. 

“ I won’t give you up ! I tell you it’s inconceivable! 
I cannot believe that you are lost to me forever!” 

Then the neglected Mr. Hennessy began once 
more to bark, and Blake turned his eyes up the garden 
path. He said: 

“ Somebody is coming down from the house. Who 
is it?” 

169 


XIV 

A MYSTERY EXPLAINED — VITTORIA MAKES A PROMISE 

“TT is my father,” Vittoria said. “You’ve never 
* met him, have you ? No, of course! How very 
odd of him to be walking about in the garden ! He 
seldom comes out of doors at all.” 

Pender Fleming came down the gravel path, 
walking heavily, after his wont, for his gait was as 
uncouth as his shapeless body: there was no elasticity 
in him. His vast and pallid cheeks — they looked 
ghastly under the wholesome sunlight — shook a little 
as he walked, and the brim of his Panama hat shook 
too. He came through the iron gate, and paused 
there a moment to peer before him with narrowed 
eyes, for he was short-sighted. His attitude, with 
out-thrust, pendulous head, was oddly suggestive of 
those sullen beasts of prey who sit within cages at 
a show and stare dully at the passers-by. 

Vittoria spoke to him, and he said: 

“Ah, there you are! There you are! Is that you, 
Beau ?” He began again to move forward with his 
short, heavy paces. The tabby cat, with friendly 
intent, leaped down from its place atop the sun-dial 
170 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and got in the way of his feet. Pender kicked at 
it without looking down. He asked again: 

“ Is that you, Beau ?” And Vittoria laughed, saying : 

‘‘Of course it’s not Beau. It is — ” She halted 
midway of her sentence for sheer amazement and 
alarm, for her father, advancing past the fountain 
pool, seemed at last to see clearly the face of the young 
man before him, and gave a sort of gasping, whisper- 
ing cry. He had a stick in one hand, but he raised 
both hands before him as if he were frightened, and 
all his huge white face began to twitch and quiver 
in the most horrible way, as if he were in a fit of 
epilepsy. 

Vittoria thought she heard him say: 

“Oh, my God!” and, “After all these years!” But 
she was not sure of the words. She looked from her 
father to Richard Blake, and that young man seemed 
to be as astonished and as alarmed as she was. The 
thing was incomprehensible. She was a little fright- 
ened, but she moved closer to her father, and touched 
his arm, saying, anxiously: 

“Are you ill? Are you in pain, father?” And 
when he did not answer her, she said: 

“This is Mr. Richard Blake, who is staying with 
the Farings. You must help me thank him. He 
saved my life once, in New York. I never told you.” 

Pender Fleming raised the stick in a shaking hand. 

“Get out of my garden, sir!” he said, in a hoarse 
whisper. He could hardly speak. Vittoria cried, 
sharply: 

I 7 I 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Father! Father!” And Richard Blake gave a 
little exclamation of astonishment and stared at the 
man who stood trembling before him, the cane wav- 
ing in erratic circles overhead. He said: 

“Yes, of course! Certainly, IT1 get out of your 
garden if you say so, but I must know why. I was 
quite properly presented to your daughter by her 
cousin, Mrs. Dudley, and at present I am a guest of 
your daughter’s friends; so, you see, I must be fairly 
respectable. 1 should like to know your reason for 
ordering me away. Men don’t take that tone with 
one another without some excellent reason.” 

“Will you get out of my garden,” said Pender 
Fleming, “or will you be beaten half to death and 
then kicked out ?” He advanced a step, holding the 
heavy stick on high, but his arm shook uncontrollably, 
and the stick wavered from side to side in his hold. 
Blake made no movement to defend himself. He 
kept his hands down, and his eyes upon the elder 
man’s eyes. But when Fleming spoke the second 
time and came a step forward, Vittoria sprang before 
him and caught his upraised arm. She cried out 
again : 

“Father! Father!” And the man’s arm dropped 
suddenly beside him as if he had been shot or 
struck a violent blow. Holding him with her two 
hands, Vittoria stared into his face. 

“You must be mad!” she said, amazedly. “You 
must be quite mad. Who do you think this is ? 
You’re making some terrible and grotesque mistake. 

172 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


This is Mr. Richard Blake — Richard Blake. I tell 
you, he saved my life! You owe him my very life. 
Are you insane ?” 

“I know what I am doing, ’’said Pender Fleming, 
in a thick voice. “I know who this — man is. He 
is Richard Blake, the son of Creighton Blake, and if 
he remains here before me very mu<:h longer I shall 
kill him with my hands.” He gave a sort of sob. 

“Go into the house!” he said, in his hoarse, whis- 
pering tone. “Go into the house at once! I must 
deal with this — this scoundrel, alone.” But at that 
the girl drew back from him with an odd light in 
her eyes that Pender Fleming did not know. She 
stood beside the younger man, and laid her two hands 
upon him. 

“Whatever you have to say,” said she, “you will 
say to us both. I think you are a little beside your- 
self, and I know that you have hideously insulted my 
guest and your guest — insulted him beyond all 
pardon; but now that we three are together, you must 
give your reasons for — for the attitude you have taken. 
It concerns me as much as it concerns Richard Blake, 
and — I remain here.” 

“For the last time,” said Pender Fleming to the 
man before him, and trembling very violently — “for 
the last time, will you leave my garden ?” And 
Blake said, again: 

“Not until I know why. For, on my word of 
honor,” said he, “I am absolutely and entirely in the 
dark.” 


m 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“You He!” cried Pender Fleming, in a chattering 
rage. “You lie, most damnably!” 

For just an instant the younger man’s head went 
forward and a deep flush swept over it, but he checked 
himself with a great effort. 

“I said on my word of honor,” he repeated. But 
Pender Fleming laughed discordantly. 

“Honor!” he sneered, laughing. “A Blake’s 
honor!” And then, as if he had come at last quite 
to the end of endurance and anything like self-con- 
trol, he raised his arms to the bright blue sky, and a 
fit of raving and sobbing and cursing madness fell 
upon him, and he was as one possessed. 

In the end, after, it may be, ten minutes of this, 
the man’s contorted face went crimson and white 
again very alarmingly, and he swayed upon his feet 
and would have fallen prone but that Vittoria and 
Richard Blake caught him in their arms and eased 
the heavy body down upon one of the garden benches 
which stood near. 

Over Fleming’s bowed head they faced each other 
white and still, for those half-coherent ravings had 
told a very terrible story, and they knew that the story 
was so. 

Vittoria’s beautiful mother, the sweet and gentle 
mother who had, after so many years, become a 
living reality to her, had left her husband’s house 
and the six-months-old child there, and had gone 
away. It was to Creighton Blake that she went, and 
she died in his arms a year later. 

174 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Instinctively the mind of each of these two young 
people flashed back to those first meaningless and 
unheeded warnings. 

“ Catharine Dudley knew !” the girl said, in a sound- 
less whisper. “That is why she tried to discourage 
me in the beginning. But, oh, why didn’t she tell 
me the truth ? Why ? Why ?” 

And Blake, staring dumbly at the girl before him, 
said within himself : 

“That was what my father meant! Good God, 
why couldn’t he have told me ?” 

It never occurred to either of them to doubt the 
truth of what Pender Fleming had betrayed in his 
fury. The thing carried conviction with it. It was 
too terribly serious to be false. So they stood for a 
long time looking into each other’s white face over 
the huddled and half-unconscious figure that crouch- 
ed like a dead thing on the garden bench. But at 
last, as if the same impulse had stirred them both at 
the same instant, they moved a little distance away, 
toward the iron gate in the wall. The Irish terrier, 
seated on its haunches near by, regarded them with 
eyes of puzzled anxiety, and thumped its stub of a 
tail upon the garden path. Clearly, the air of that 
place was surcharged with trouble, and the small 
beast gave one short whine of anguish and began 
to shiver, as dogs do. Farther away the sleek and 
self-indulgent cat, which had skipped so indignantly 
from before the toe of Pender Fleming’s boot, was 
skipping again, at play with the golden flecks of sun- 
175 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


light which the wind-stirred leaves above made to 
dance and shiver over the trodden earth. 

Vittoria brushed her hand across her eyes, as one 
does awaking from sleep. 

“I — can't think," she said, slowly, and frowning. 
“ It is as if I were drugged or partly stunned. I seem 
to be unable to think at all.” She broke suddenly 
into a fit of dry sobbing. 

“ My beautiful mother ! My beautiful new mother ! 
I cannot — believe. What shall I do, now, without 
my mother ?” 

Blake turned away from her, for he dared not look 
at the frank agony which was in her eyes at that 
moment. What the girl had said of herself was as 
true of him. He was too stunned to think with any 
clearness. The peculiar horror of the thing had come 
upon them too unawares. They were bewildered 
before it. Yet, through all the shock and horror of 
that hour, the man’s first thought was for the girl he 
loved. It hurt him intolerably to see her so wrung by 
grief. He turned back to her in a sort of despera- 
tion, crying her name: 

“Vittoria!” And neither of them knew that he 
used that name for the first time. 

“Ah, please! please!” she said, covering her face. 
She said : “ I cannot speak to you, just now. Afterward 
— I don’t know. Will you please go away ? I think 
you’d better go away.” And he answered her, gravely : 

“Yes. I understand. I’ll go at once. First, 
though, I must look to your father.” 

176 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


But when he turned to where Pender Fleming sat 
huddled in one corner of the garden bench, breathing 
hard, his heavy face suffused, his eyes all but closed, 
she moved after him, calm again, with dry eyes. 

“My father has had these . . . seizures before,” 
she said. “They are not dangerous, I believe. No, 
you can do nothing for him. Just call the gardener, 
please. He’s outside the gate yonder. And tell him 
to send Jamieson. That is my father’s man.” 

Blake did her bidding at once, and in an incredibly 
brief time Jamieson came, running silently — not as 
other mortals run, with obvious haste, but in a fashion 
quite his own — a small, thin-faced man with shifting 
eyes and the unnaturally neat manner of the body- 
servant. He looked once obliquely toward Richard 
Blake, and dropped upon his knees before the bench 
where his master sat. He must have gone always 
prepared for emergencies, for he at once drew from 
his pocket a little flask of lavender salts and held it to 
Pender Fleming’s nose. The man began to cough 
and gasp and to roll his great head back and forth. 
Then Richard Blake bowed and went away, Mr. 
Hennessy barking triumphantly over the retreat, and 
Vittoria stood still in her place and watched him go. 

The valet had dispatched the gardener for a certain 
invalid wheel-chair which was kept on the south porch 
of the house, and it came quickly, attended by the 
gardener and a boy hailed from the stables; but 
Pender Fleming cursed them all wearily, and would 
i77 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


have none of such aid. He got, with some dif- 
ficulty, to his feet, once turned a lowering glance 
toward the girl who stood near, and so, without a word, 
leaning heavily upon the shoulder of his body-servant, 
went away up the garden path out of sight. Vit- 
toria was left there alone — save for the little faithful 
dog that shivered at her feet, and whined, and be- 
sought her with a timid, supplicating paw. 

She sat down once more upon the garden bench 
and leaned back, closing her eyes. She was full still 
of a vast bewilderment, and the sick and stunned 
sense of loss irreparable. She wondered a little, 
dully, at the savage cruelty of the fate, chance, 
providence — whatever it was — which had given her 
her sweet and beautiful mother only to rob her again 
so dreadfully. That seemed to her so wanton a 
piece of sheer malevolence. 

She sat there still for what was to her a measure- 
less interval — but it cannot have been very long — not 
thinking much or reflecting with any clearness, only 
suffering — washed and submerged in grief and re- 
sentment and a sort of bitter, vicarious shame. But 
at last she roused herself and got to her feet. 

“I must go to him, ,, she said. “I must go to my 
father.” The little dog frisked about her as she 
moved, barking joyfully and jumping up to lick her 
hand, but she went on, heedless, and entered the 
house. She made her way at once to Pender 
Fleming’s study and knocked. There was no 
answer, and she opened the door and went in. Her 
178 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


father sat in his arm-chair beside the big writing- 
table, idle, his arms hanging beside him, his chin on 
his breast. The valet was not in the room. 

Pender looked up as the girl closed the door be- 
hind her, and he said, ungraciously: 

I would rather be alone. ” But Vittoria came 
where he was and stood before him. For the first 
time in her life she was not afraid of her father. 

“You have been alone too long,” said she. “You 
have been alone ever since I can remember. Don’t 
drive me away now. I’m your daughter, after all. 
I’m all you have. It is time I began to be some- 
thing more to you than a stranger — a sort of young 
guest in your house.” She dropped down to the 
floor and laid her arms upon her father’s knee. 
Over her Pender Fleming’s vast face began to contort 
in strange grimaces, and tears began to roll down it 
— the terrible, hard-wrung tears of the stern man who 
seldom weeps. Vittoria hid her face upon her out- 
flung arms, and presently felt her father’s hand, heavy 
and awkward and trembling, on her head. After a 
little time she looked up to him and spoke. 

“Why is it?” she said. “I am wondering why it 
is that you have kept me away from you all these 
years. I might have been so much to you, it seems 
to me. I was all you had, and you wouldn’t have 
even me. You made me afraid of you, you know. 
I’ve always been terribly afraid of you. Why 
couldn’t we have been like other fathers and daugh- 
ters ?” 


13 


179 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


The man looked down at her and away. His lips 
moved, and he seemed to be trying quite grotesquely 
to speak — to explain — but he had forgotten how. 
He had been silent too long. Vittoria watched him 
with a tense eagerness, and saw the effort he made, 
and was both astonished and touched. A sudden 
light broke in upon her — a possible explanation — 
and she cried out: 

“Was it,” she asked, “because I am — so like her — 
like my mother ? Was it because I brought her back 
to you that you couldn’t bear to see me ?” 

That great pallid face began again to contort itself 
in dreadful grimaces, but the man controlled it. 
He nodded his head, looking away. 

“Yes. It was that. . . . You don’t know, child. 
. . . A sort of miracle. Year by year . . . more like . . . 
I couldn’t bear it.” And she answered: 

“Yes, I know. I’ll tell you how I know. I found 
my mother’s portrait yesterday. I was going to tell 
you about it when I had a chance. It was up in an 
attic room where some men were working at the pipes. 
Yes, I know.” At first she thought that her father 
was on the verge of one of his fits of anger, for the 
blood rushed to his face and suffused it, and during 
a brief instant his eyes darkened. But he covered 
his face with his hands and was still. 

“I wish,” Vittoria said, very earnestly, “that I 
could make up to you even a little for what — they 
did so long ago — what my mother did. I wish that 
I could comfort you, somehow, but I see how it is. 

180 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


You can never even look at me without thinking of 
her — remembering. It is terrible.” 

“Do you think I ever forget ?” cried Pender Flem- 
ing, aloud. “Do you think that one hour passes of 
the day or night that does not bring her face to me, 
the sound of her voice — the — fright and hatred in 
her eyes ? Do you ? I tell you, I see her always. 
I sit here in this room, and she stands across yonder 
in the shadows and looks at me. And he comes there 
too! He comes! And she shrinks away from me 
with hate in her eyes — and I hear what she says to 
me — intolerable things — and she — turns to him, and 
they go away together.” The man began to tremble 
violently. He cried : 

“ I have lived in hell for nearly twenty years, and 
that man’s face has mocked me!” 

Vittoria caught the hand which lay near her be- 
tween her own hands and bowed her cheek upon it. 
She had fallen to trembling also, in sympathy with 
the tremors which shook her father’s great body so 
fiercely. She was very swift of comprehension, and 
she understood, as well as if the man had spoken at 
great length and with great eloquence, the ceaseless 
and enduring torture which had made him a sort of 
madman dwelling in the presence of his curse. 
After all, she was Pender Fleming’s daughter, 
though she bore no littlest outward resemblance 
to him, and that grim and deathless obsession of 
love and hate was far from incomprehensible to 
her. 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


A thought came to her mind, and she looked up. 
She said: 

“ Is Richard Blake, then, so like his father ? When 
you saw him in the garden you seemed to be — over- 
come before I could tell you who he was, and you 
cannot ever have seen him before, I should think — 
not for years, anyhow.” She understood Pender 
Fleming to say, in a whisper, “Yes — very like! Very 
like!” And then she remembered that she herself 
had once had a glimpse of Creighton Blake. 

“Of course! I saw the father once — at a ball in 
New York.” She paused to reflect upon that man’s 
haggard and grief-scored face. 

“Yes, they are alike, but not so much alike as my 
mother and I. I saw him. . . . Do you know — ” 
She looked up again with a certain curiosity. “Do 
you know I wonder that you let me run the risk 
of meeting Richard Blake ? You must have real- 
ized that it was possible.” 

“Beaumont Temple,” said her father, “told me 
that — the two were abroad. Else I should not have 
allowed you to go to New York.” And she nodded 
at that. 

“Yes, I believe they are abroad most of the time. 
The other — Richard Blake’s father — is abroad now — 
in the Pacific islands, I think. . . . But how very 
dreadful that I should have met them — met that 
man’s son, and never have known! He didn’t know, 
either. You were wrong there. I am sure that he 
didn’t know. His father must have kept it from 
182 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

him as you have kept it from me. He didn’t 
know. 

“There is a great deal that is strange in it — un- 
canny, now that I know. I begin to think there is 
something horribly fatal about it. Fate still working 
away . . . after all these years. . . . And I wonder why ? 
Why ?” Holding fast to his hand, she looked up 
oddly into Pender Fleming’s bowed face. 

“Do you know,” she said, “I believe that is un- 
cannily true — about Fate working still, after all these 
years. It is very strange, but Richard Blake quite 
blindly, quite ignorantly, seems to have done all 
that a human being could, by any possibility, do to 
make up for his father’s wrong to you ? He saved 
my life. I told you that, didn’t I ? I was thrown 
from my horse in the Park in New York, and by a sort 
of miracle he was near by when it happened. He was 
standing on a foot-bridge over the bridle-path, and he 
leaped down — a tremendous distance — and saved me 
when I was being dragged. I’m quite certain that I 
should have been killed if he hadn’t come to help 
me.” The girl’s voice rose a little in her excitement, 
and she gripped Pender Fleming’s hand hard be- 
tween hers. 

“ Do you see what I mean ? Creighton Blake took 
your wife from you, and his son has given you back 
your daughter’s life — though he didn’t at all know 
what he was doing. There must have been Fate in 
that. It’s quite too strange just to have happened. 

“Doesn’t it — help a little?” she asked, almost 

183 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


timidly. “ Doesn’t it take away — a little of the bitter- 
ness ? It seems to me very wonderful.” 

But the man drew away his hand with a sharp 
effort, and she felt that the violent trembling had once 
more come upon him. She looked up, and his white 
face was drawn with it — wrung and twisted. 

“I would rather you had died!” cried Pender 
Fleming, in a terrible voice. He shook horribly from 
head to feet. 

“I would rather you had died than owe your life 
to that man’s son.” Vittoria gave a little exclama- 
tion of horror and pain, and shrank a little away, but 
her father suddenly put out his hands, grasped her 
by the shoulders and held her fast. That white, 
contorted face blazed down upon her with a dreadful 
anguish, and his trembling shook her strongly. 

“What is he to you?” cried Pender Fleming. 
“What is this son of Creighton Blake to you, that 
you sit with him in your own garden ? Answer 
me!” 

“He is nothing,” she said. “Nothing. Please let 
me go. You hurt me!” But the man swept on, 
unheeding: 

“He is his father’s son — blood and flesh? Blake 
they are, both of them. They have torn my heart 
alive out of my body — despoiled me — robbed me of 
more than life itself. They have damned me in this 
world and all worlds to come — and you take the hand 
of one of them, smile upon him, laugh with him! I 
would rather see you dead here before me. I tell 
184 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


you I would rather see you dead ! It is unthinkable !” 
He gave a sudden bitter sob. 

“It needs only that you should tell me you have 
fallen in love with this Blake. Then I think I could 
at last curse God and die. It needs only that. So 
tell me, if it is true/’ 

Vittoria wrenched herself free from the gripping 
hands and got to her feet, breathing stormily. 

“I have already told you,” said she, white and 
angry. “I have said that Richard Blake is nothing 
to me. He could be nothing to me, however I 
might feel, because I have promised to marry Beau 
Temple. I settled that definitely yesterday. In any 
case, when I think that he — that Richard Blake is 
the son of the man who wronged you so terribly — 
who robbed me of my mother, I — I cannot think of 
it calmly. I am bound to be grateful to him always 
because he saved my life, and I repeat that in doing 
so he did all that a human being could do to repair 
his father’s sin, but — I hope I shall never see him 
again. I cannot bear to think of him.” She spoke 
very earnestly, with all the emphasis she could give 
the words, and she meant what she said. The 
enormity of that ancient wrong loomed very high to 
her just then, as she looked upon the bleak and bitter 
wreck of a man before her and thought what it was 
that had crushed him. The very atmosphere of 
Pender Fleming’s habitation was an atmosphere 
of deathless brooding grief, of implacable titanic 
hatred. It surrounded her, and she breathed it in. 
185 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


It was poisonous, like the vapor of a deadly drug. In 
that moment she hated Richard, the son of Creighton 
Blake, almost as bitterly as her father hated him. 

“Promise me,” cried Pender Fleming, eagerly — 
his passion would seem to have filled him with 
strange and grotesque terrors — “ promise me that 
you will never see this man again. I cannot bear the 
thought of your even seeing him. Promise me 
solemnly and faithfully!” Vittoria shook her head. 

“That,” said she, “is a thing no one could promise. 
I might see him by accident at almost any time. He 
is staying in the neighborhood — though he may have 
the decency to go away now. And besides, in later 
life, it is quite probable that however hard we might 
both try to avoid it, we shall meet occasionally. If 
I marry Beau I shall not live always in the country, 
you know. I shall be in New York during the winter. 
You ask an impossible thing.” 

But the man was in no state to be reasonable. He 
got with a struggle to his feet, and stood trembling 
before his daughter. “You are trying to trick me!” 
he cried, excitedly. “You are trying to evade a 
promise. What are you hiding from me ? What, I 
say ?” He gave a sort of shout. 

“Am I too late? Has it come, then ? Is it true 
that you love him — this man? Answer me!” 

“I have told you, twice,” said she. “How many 
times must I say it ?” She saw that her father was 
beside himself. 

He seemed to make a violent effort at self-com- 
186 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


mand and became calm. He peered at the girl with 
a sort of grotesque cunning. 

“ Promise me, then, solemnly and faithfully, that 
you will never marry Richard Blake !” 

Vittoria gave a brief laugh of angry scorn, and said : 

“I promise/’ But he held her still with his eyes. 

“Faithfully and solemnly?” 

She frowned upon him. 

“I have never yet broken my word,” said she, 
“and I do not expect to begin now. I gave you the 
absurd promise you asked. It will add no force to 
it to pile up words. Still, if it is any tomfort to you 
— yes, I promise faithfully and solemnly. It is all 
quite absurd and needless, you know.” Then be- 
cause she was angry and had borne about all she could 
bear, even from her father, she turned away without 
further speech, and left the room. Pender Fleming 
followed a little way after her, and he seemed to make 
a soundless effort to call her back, but the door 
closed in his face and left him standing alone. 


XV 


WHEN LOVE CALLS, ANSWER AND GO 

5 she came out from her father’s study Vittoria 



n heard weird sounds ringing through the house, 
and so was aware that it was luncheon-time. The 
summons to this mid-day meal at Standish was 
perforce varied and elaborate. There was never 
any difficulty in finding the master of the house, but 
Vittoria might be almost anywhere in that portion of 
Connecticut, and running her to earth (or rather to 
food) often required the efforts of the whole staff 
of servants. Mr. Griggs, the elderly butler, attended, 
by established custom, to the in-door branch of the 
search. There hung near the door of the dining- 
room one of those dreadful strings of so-called Japan- 
ese temple-gongs, arranged more or less in a chime, 
with which most households have been at some 
period cursed, and each day at one o’clock Mr. 
Griggs, who had no music in his soul, performed 
patiently and unimaginatively upon this horror with 
a little muffled stick. It sounded like some one 
learning to play the xylophone. 

Vittoria heard these unlovely sounds, and called 
out hastily that she was coming. Mr. Griggs left off 


188 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

his musical labors to knock at Pender Fleming’s 
door, but returned presently, saying that the master 
would not appear. So Vittoria sat alone at the 
table for half an hour trying to force herself to eat 
something, and found that it was well - nigh im- 
possible in her overwrought state of mind and body. 
Few people can eat under such conditions as these. 
Still, the very peace and quiet of the familiar room, 
the cool silence about her, the commonplace ministra- 
tions, were very restful and relaxing, and before she 
had risen from the table she found that she was calm 
once more and free from the excitement which her 
father’s bitter frenzy had communicated to her. She 
looked back over that strange interview, and was 
amazed and a little frightened when she realized to 
what a nervous pitch she had been wrought up. It 
was the first time within her memory that she had 
given way to unrestrained bitterness of thought and 
speech, and she was ashamed of it, though she knew 
well enough that it had been only the reflex of her 
father’s incredible fury. She had made a solemn 
promise, too, which was to cover the whole period of 
her future life, and while it seemed to her a perfectly 
foolish and absurdly unnecessary promise, still a 
solemn promise is a sobering thing when one expects 
to keep it, and Vittoria reflected upon it gravely. 
The thought brought Richard Blake back to her, not 
unnaturally, and she found that now, away from her 
father’s blazing eyes, the thought was by no means so 
intolerable as it had been. After all, what she had 
189 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


said to Pender Fleming was quite true. The young 
man had done, though ignorantly, all that was 
possible to make up for his father’s sin. There was 
no blame which could attach to him in that sorry 
matter of twenty years past. 

Vittoria went slowly up-stairs, meaning to change 
into a riding-skirt. At the door of her chamber she 
halted with a sudden pang, for she remembered that 
there was one within whom she must face in the light 
of new and terrible knowledge. She stood there 
before the door for a long time, with bent head and 
her hands hanging at her sides. But in the end she 
went in and closed the door behind her. She went 
straight across the room to the mantel over the fire- 
place, where, early that morning, she had had the 
portrait set in place, though it was not yet fastened 
to the wall, and she looked up very gravely, without 
shrinking, to meet her mother’s eyes. 

Again, as on the evening before, the strange re- 
semblance of a silent speech seemed to pass between 
the two, but it must have been plainer speech this 
time, for much that was in the eager and wistful gaze 
of Donna Bianca Fleming was now comprehensible 
to her daughter. The girl must have known now, 
in part — though not all — what it was her mother 
strove so hard to say to her. 

She looked into that beautiful face, striving, for 
her father’s sake, to find there some trace of cruelty, 
treachery, deceit — some trace of the woman who 
would wreck the life of the man who loved her, out of 
190 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


selfishness, caprice, hurt pride. She could find noth- 
ing of all that in Donna Bianca’s face, nothing: only 
sweetness, and pain, and long-suffering, and a passion- 
ate longing for love and life. She bent her head and 
recalled the face of Creighton Blake, seen for one long 
moment across a ball-room floor, and, for her father’s 
sake, tried to find therein some trace of the jeering 
libertine, the despoiler of homes. It was a haggard 
face, she remembered well, one to fix itself indelibly 
upon the memory — a face worn by incredible grief 
— a haunted face, but there was nothing contemptible 
or vicious or cruel in it, only sorrow and a certain 
melancholy nobility — the face of a man who might 
love once disastrously in defiance of all law, but only 
once, and then with a terrible and a tragic intensity. 

So the girl came at last to the third figure in that 
great romance of buried love and tragedy — the man 
who had sat alone in his dim room for twenty years, 
and remembered and hated. She looked upon him, 
for the first time, dispassionately, mercilessly, as if 
he were not her father, but a stranger to her. She 
pictured, in the light of her knowledge of Pender 
Fleming, the life which must have been led by those 
two together — Donna Bianca, all sweetness, light, 
love of joy, soft tenderness, and the stern, glowering, 
austere man under whose shadow she herself had 
passed her young life. Vittoria saw it, this pitiful 
existence, as if with physical eyes, as if it lay spread 
out before her, and she gave a great cry of sorrow and 
understanding, and bowed her head over her arms 
191 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


before her mother’s portrait, and wept there for a 
long time. 

When at last she composed herself and turned away 
it was with a curiously light heart. Her beautiful 
mother had again been restored to her, and, in the 
face of that wonderful fact, it seemed that nothing 
else in the world mattered very much. She knew 
vaguely that this must probably mean a further 
estrangement from Pender Fleming, but she did not 
wish to go into that at the present. It was enough 
that she had her mother back, within arm’s-reach, 
and could love and idolize her without fear and with- 
out shame. She looked up once more into Donna 
Bianca’s lovely face, and she said: 

“Oh, my dear, I know. I know. And I’m glad 
you did what you did. I understand.” Then, for- 
getting that she had come up-stairs to change into a 
riding-skirt, she went down again and out into the 
gardens. 

She did not enter the brick-walled enclosure where 
she had been earlier that day, but sat down upon a 
shady bench beside the wide pool where the gold- 
fish swam, and she had not been there above ten 
minutes when she heard her name shouted from be- 
yond the gate, and Beaumont Temple, in riding- 
clothes, swinging a horn-handled crop, burst in upon 
her. He said: 

“Ah! there you are! I was afraid I’d missed you. 
Nobody knew, as usual, where you even might pos- 
sibly be. What’s the matter with Pender Fleming? 

192 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


He refuses absolutely to see me. And he hasn’t done 
that for years. Is he ill ? What ?” 

“I’m afraid he’s a good deal excited and wrought 
up, Beau,” the girl said, as Temple sat down beside 
her. “I don’t imagine he’s ill, quite, but — some- 
thing happened this morning, and then, afterward, 
father and I talked in his study, and — well, he 
worked himself up into a frightful state.” 

Temple said, “Ah!” And, after a moment, Vit- 
toria went on: 

“Some one — a man came here this morning to 
call on me, and father found us together in the 
gardens and had one of his rages. You know 
them.” 

Temple looked at her in silence, an interrogative 
silence, and presently she became aware that he did 
not wish to ask who the man was. 

“The man was Richard Blake, Beau,” she said, 
quietly. “And — I know, now, about my mother 
and — his father. It all came out to-day.” 

Temple turned and leaned forward, with his elbows 
on his knees and his hands clasped about his crop. 
He began to dig little holes in the earth and to make 
geometrical designs of great elaboration. After a 
while he said, as if to himself: 

“I have always maintained that extraordinarily 
fanciful and dramatic things happen in real life. I 
have always maintained that. Certainly this thing 
— Creighton Blake’s son! And you’d been away 
a few months only! There’s something astoundingly 
193 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


poetic about it. Poor old Pender !” He looked up 
at the girl gravely. 

“My beautiful mother !” Vittoria cried. “Oh, 
Beau, I understand so well, so well! Pve found a 
portrait of her. I found it in a closed room in the 
attic, where it had been hidden away. And it’s all 
in her face. All of it. She had to be happy. She 
was like that.” 

“Yes,” said he, gravely, “she was like that. She 
had to be happy.” 

“And I hope she was!” cried Bianca’s daughter. 
“I hope she had her one year of happiness and died 
in it — before she was ever sorry. Oh, I understand 
so well, Beau! I’m glad she did what she did. Pm 
glad of it!” 

The man nodded without speaking, and for a 
time the two sat in silence. Temple went back to 
his earthworks, but gave that over and glanced up 
from it. Vittoria was looking across the garden en- 
closure to the red opposite wall, and, seemingly, 
through that and far away. Her lips were parted. 
She smiled very faintly, and the heavy lashes drooped 
over her eyes Two flashes of golden sunlight came 
down upon her black hair, burning it to a sort of 
molten copper, and, as the leaves overhead stirred 
in the breeze, the spots of golden light shivered and 
played as if the molten copper were alive like quick- 
silver. They made a splendid halo round the girl’s 
splendid head, and a little pang shot through the 
heart of the man who sat watching. It seemed to 
194 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


him that he had never seen her so magnificently beau- 
tiful, not even on that first evening after her return 
home, and her near presence had never before stirred 
him so. He watched the lashes that drooped over 
her eyes and the little smile that was at her lips, 
and a sudden spasm of jealousy wrung him, for he 
knew that her thoughts were very far away in that 
strange past, and that nothing he could conceivably 
say or do would ever make her smile in just that 
fashion. 

He had often chaffed with Vittoria about his ad- 
vanced age without any seriousness at all, for he neither 
looked nor felt even the four-and-forty to which he 
was entitled, but in this hour he suddenly felt old and 
tired and very far away from this beautiful child who 
had all at once become a woman. The realization 
came to him with a sense of dull pain, a sort of bitter- 
ness, and he closed his eyes for a moment and took 
a long, deep breath which was a sigh. The sigh seemed 
to waken the girl from her dreaming, for she turned 
with a start, saying: 

“Beau!” 

“Yes, my dear,” said he, gently. 

“Beau,” she said, “could you tell me more about 
her — now ? About my mother, I mean. Were you 
here when it — when she went away ?” 

“No,” he said; “I had been abroad for nearly a 
year at that time. I returned almost immediately 
after it happened.” He gave a sudden exclamation, 
and Vittoria looked up at him. 

14 195 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“But there is some one who was here,” he said. “I 
had almost forgotten. My housekeeper, Mrs. Calla- 
han — Maggie Callahan — was at Standish when you 
were born. She was one of Donna Bianca’s nurses. 
When they went away — when your mother went 
away — Pender discharged every servant in the house 
and took new ones. He — couldn’t bear to have the 
others about, I think. Mrs. Callahan came to me, 
and I took her for housekeeper. You’ve seen her 
there for years — all your life.” 

“Oh, Beau,” the girl cried, “if I could only talk 
to her! Do you think I might ?” 

“I don’t see why not,” said he. “You know the 
main facts now. I see no reason why Mrs. Callahan 
shouldn’t tell you anything she remembers.” He 
pulled out his watch and looked at it. 

“Three o’clock!” he said. “Go and put on a 
riding-skirt, and I’ll order your horse from the stable. 
We’ll ride to Lone Tree Hill and interview Mrs. 
Callahan.” 

“Ah, you’re a dear, Beau!” she said, springing to 
her feet. “You’re a sweet dear! I sha’n’t be ten 
minutes, so be off to the stable and have Sunrise 
saddled. I shall be ready as soon as you are.” 

She kept her word. She was not above ten minutes, 
and in fifteen the two were off down the drive at a 
sharp trot, and at Lone Tree Hill in half an hour. 

Vittoria sat down upon the screened porch, and 
Temple went into the house. He was gone perhaps 
five minutes, and when he returned he was accom- 
196 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


panied by the old housekeeper, Mrs. Callahan, whom 
the girl had known since her childhood. The Irish- 
woman’s eyes were round and excited, and she had a 
frightened air. She made an odd little bobbing 
curtsey to her master’s guest, but Vittoria sprang up 
and kissed the woman on both cheeks, saying: 

“ How dare you be formal to me, Maggie Callahan? 
I’m ashamed of you ! You, who used to give me cake 
and tell me stories when I came over here from home! 
For shame, Maggie Callahan!” 

The woman grinned and her eyes twinkled, but it 
was a brief grin, and she was very obviously ill at ease. 
She looked toward her master over Vittoria Flem- 
ing’s shoulder, and Temple nodded to her. 

“I’ve told Mrs. Callahan,” said he, “that you 
know the truth about your mother’s going away, and 
that you want to know any little things she may re- 
member of her and of that time.” 

“Yes — please, please, Maggie Callahan!” said the 
girl, and again the housekeeper made her little bobb- 
ing curtsey. 

“It’s little I do know, Miss Vittory,” she protested. 
“ Sure, I was there wid her — the poor lamb ! I wint 
there for to nurse her whin ye was borrn, miss, an’ 
I stayed for six months afther — ontil she — she wint 
away. But there’s little I know, belike, that ye’ve 
not been told.” 

“Oh, any little thing!” cried Vittoria. “Any lit- 
tlest thing that you remember. You loved her, 
didn’t you, Maggie Callahan ?” 

197 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Glory be!” said the Irishwoman, “I did that, 
miss. An’ ivery wan that iver knew that blessed 
swate soul loved her. Ye couldn’t help lovin’ her av 
ye thried. An’, so far as I know, no wan iver thried. 

“ I mind whin ye was borrn, Miss Vittory, an’ how 
she bore ut all — a-beggin’ yer pardon, miss, f’r speak- 
in’ ! — wid niver a cry, but lay there wid a little white 
smile on the face av her. An’ late that night, whin I 
was alone wid her an’ she’d been asleep, she waked 
up sudden, an’ says to me: 

“‘It’s a strong, well child, Maggie dear ?’ 

“ I says : 

‘“A fine great girl, dearie, widout mark or blemish. 
A fine girl!’ 

“An’ she says: 

“‘Praise God, I’ll bring her up to be happy — 
happier than I have ever been, Maggie dear. That’s 
what I want her to be,’ she says, ‘happy! — happy!’ 
An’ afther a little time she beckoned me closer to 
where she lay, an’ she says, whisperin’ slow: 

“‘Don’t lit him come in!’ 

“‘Lit who ?’ says I. 

“‘My — Misther Fleming,’ she says, turnin’ her 
swate face away on the pilla. An’ I says: 

“‘He’ll come in over me dead corpse,’ I says. 
‘Niver fear, darlin’ ! Ye go along wid ye to slape an’ 
lave me watch.’ Ah, she was always a-beggin’ that 
av me — askin’ yer pardon, miss! — not to lit him come 
in. He froze her like, wid his sharp tongue an’ his 
quare ways. She feared him.” 

198 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Vittoria nodded her head very slowly, and she said : 

“Yes, I know — I know.” And presently she said: 

“When did you see them together first, Maggie 
Callahan, my mother and — Mr. Blake ?” 

“’Twas nigh two months afther ye was borrn, 
miss,” said the housekeeper. “We was walkin’ in 
the gaarden wan fine soft summer mornin’, an’ we 
kem to the shpot where there’s a gate alongside that 
wood lane — the lane that leads north across the hills 
toward the ould Shaw house. There was some 
wan kem ridin’ along the lane on a big gray horse, 
an’ whin he saw us two a-standin’ there he pulled up 
the horse an’ sat still wid his eyes on yer mother, miss. 
I mind he dropped his ridin’-whip, an’ I wint to pick 
it up for him. He thanked me like a gintleman, 
but he niver rowled his eyes, an’ whin I kem back to 
yer mother she was starin’ too, an’ white. Misther 
Blake looked like he’d been at death’s dure. His 
eyes had big black rings undher thim and his cheeks 
was thin. He says: 

“‘May I congratulate ye, Madonna?’ That was 
the worrd he says. I remimber it. He says: 

‘“Ye have a treasure now.’ An’ yer mother looked 
up at him, an’ she says, very slow: 

“‘An anchor, Tony, an anchor in time of sthress.’ 
An’ thin nayther av thim says any more, but afther 
a while Misther Blake bowed — ah, a fin£, courtly 
gintleman he was, an’ that handsome! — an’ he rode 
away down the lane.” 

“And again ?” said Vittoria, with her hands clasped 
199 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


together at her breast. “You saw them together 
again — after that?” 

“Many times, miss. Sure, it was many times they 
was together in the gaarden — the little gaarden wid 
the ould wall round ut. Yer mother wud always 
have me there too, not far away. I dunno why. Ut 
may be — no, I dunno why. But I remimber wan 
time — the last time. Yer father — Misther Fleming 
— he kem there an’ found thim — not that they’d been 
a-stealin’ away to mate there. They did it open. 
But Misther Fleming he was always shut up in his 
lib’ry, an’ maybe he didn’t know. Maybe. Anny- 
ways, he kem that mornin’, an’ he was in wan av 
his black rages. The things he says was terrible. 
Wance I thought Misther Blake would lay hands on 
um where he stood, but yer swate mother, miss, cried 
out, an’ he stepped away. Thin she bid him go — an’ 
he wint,wid wan long luk back in her face. An’ yer 
mother wint very slow up to the house wid her hus- 
band. . . . What they said lather I heard, but I cannot 
say all av ut to ye, Miss Vittory. He was still in his 
black rage, an’ he did not pick an’ choose his worrds. 
Wance, I mind, he says to her, the face av him white 
an’ workin’: 

“‘An what kind av a woman do ye call yerself, 
thin ?’ An’ she says, lookin’ in his eyes : 

“‘A slave, Pender. A slave waitin’ for death. 
God send it soon!’ says she.” 

Vittoria gave a sudden gasping sob, and Beaumont 
Temple came quickly forward. 

200 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“That’s enough, Vittoria,” he said. “That’s 
more than enough. This only pains you, and makes 
you suffer. It’s all over, my dear, and done with, 
years ago. Let it rest.” But the girl shook her head, 
saying: 

“No, Beau! No! Let me hear it! Can’t you 
see how I want to hear it ? Can’t you see how it 
makes me understand ? Please go on, Maggie 
Callahan. Go on!” 

The Irishwoman looked up at her master, but 
Temple shrugged his shoulders and turned away. 

“ Please go on,” the girl begged. And after a mo- 
ment the housekeeper said: 

“An’ that night he tuk the child away from her — 
her little child ! 

“‘Ye’re not fit to have ut in yer keepin’,’ he says 
to her. ‘Ye’re not the kind av woman to have an 
innocent child near to ye.’” 

“I knew it!” cried Vittoria. “I knew it! I knew 
he must have done something like that! Please go 
on.” 

“ She said little to ’m, the poor lamb ! On’y sat an’ 
looked on, wid her white face an’ her big black eyes, 
but whin he was leavin’ her, she says: 

“‘Be careful, Pender! — I warn ye!’ she says. 
‘Ye’re goin’ too far this time. Ye’ve made my life 
somethin’ very like hell,’ she says, ‘an’ I’ve borne ut. 
But av there’s any love left in ye for me, Pender, 
don’t take my child away from me. Av ye do, ye’ll 
be sorry.’ 


201 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


‘“Ye’re not fit to have a child wid ye/ he says 
ag’in; an’ she gave a little moan, wid her face bechune 
her two hands, an’ he wint out wid the child. 

“So ut wint on for three days more, an’ she kipt to 
her room, niver stirrin’ out; but on the third night, 
whin I stole in to her, she was up an’ writin’ at her 
table. It was a letther she wrote, an’ whin she had 
sealed ut she gave ut to me an’ says: 

“‘Take it to Benny the under-groom/ she says. 
‘ Benny will know what to do wid ut.’ She put her 
head down on my shouldher for a minnut. 

“‘I have borne all I can bear, Maggie!’ she says. 
‘This is the ind.’ An’ I says nothin’ to her, for there 
was nothin’ to say. 

“On the nixt night she wint. I helped her to dress 
warm and neat for the journey, an’ to put the few 
little things she needed into a bag. At the ind she 
says: 

“‘Where is — my child?’ I had the key to the 
nursery, an’ I tuk her there. You were sleepin’ in 
your little bed, miss, an’ a night - light was near. 
The fat pig av a wet-nurse he’d sint for was snorin’ 
acrost the room. Yer mother bint over yer bed an’ 
kissed ye wance on the mouth, an’ ye didn’t wake. 
An’ she says, whisperin’: 

“ ‘ Good-bye, me tiny dear. God send ye a betther 
life than He sint yer mother! Grow up brave and 
strong,’ she says, ‘an’ whin ye’re grown up don’t lit 
anny wan choose for ye — choose for yerself,’ says she. 
‘An’ whin Love calls, oh, answer! — answer an’ go!’ 

202 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Thin she kem away an’ we wint down through 
the house an’ out, an’ I wint wid her acrost the 
gaardens to the wood lane. He was waitin’ there. 

“An’ she kissed me wance, an’ they rode away.” 

Vittoria bent her head without speaking. After a 
little time she raised it again, and her eyes were 
very bright, but there were no tears in them. She 
took Mrs. Callahan’s hands in hers, and kissed the 
woman’s cheeks again. 

“You were very, very good to my mother,” said 
she. “I wish I could tell you how grateful I am, 
but I can’t. Thank you very much for — telling 
me.” 

The Irishwoman looked toward her master, and she 
twisted her apron between her strong hands. Now 
that her tale was done the first embarrassment seemed 
to return upon her, so that she was flushed and ill at 
ease. Temple nodded to her, and she turned and 
went quickly into the house — for some obscure reason 
on tiptoe. 

Then the man came forward, and Vittoria looked 
up at him with a little trembling smile. 

“I’m sad — for the moment, Beau,” said she, 
“with thinking what my mother suffered, but oh, 
I’m glad to know, because now I can be glad that 
she did what she did without even the littlest reserva- 
tion or regret. I had thought and wondered about 
her leaving her child and going away. Now I un- 
derstand. He had taken her child from her.” The 
girl’s face hardened to a sternness that Temple had 
20 } 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


never before seen there — it was a bit of the father in 
her — and she said: 

“I can never forgive him that.” 

“There is a great deal,” said Beau Temple, “that 
I shall never be able to forgive Pender for, but we 
mustn’t be too hard with him. Even knowing what 
we know, we mustn’t be too hard. Pender was 
always Pender, you know. He always had much 
within himself to contend with. He was austere by 
nature — cold, critical, awkward before any impulse of 
tenderness. He loved your mother very deeply, but 
he couldn’t show it. And he never understood a 
woman. They were as far apart as the poles, 
those two. Their marriage was a hideous mistake, 
and Pender made it more hideous. I can’t forgive 
him for what he did, but sometimes I pity him very 
much. He never had a fair chance.” 

“Had my mother a fair chance ?” the girl demand- 
ed. “Had she? I’m afraid I can never forgive him, 
Beau. It hurts me to say that, but it’s true.” 

Temple watched her, and knew that it was indeed 
true. The young can be very cruel sometimes. He 
had a moment of curiosity, unusual with him, and 
asked : 

“Did Richard Blake know the truth — about what 
happened long ago ?” 

“No,” she said. “No, he didn’t know — not until 
to-day. His father must have kept it from him, as 
mine did from me.” She looked up. 

“I tried,” said she, “to make my father see how 
204 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


much Richard Blake did in reparation, even though 
it was unconscious, when he saved my life. But it 
only drove him to a greater fury. He was fairly be- 
side himself.” 

“Beside himself?” queried the man. “About 
what ? Ah, I see! At finding Mr. Blake with you — 
at finding that you knew him. Yes, of course.” 

She had a feeling that it was Beau’s right to know 
everything that had passed, and she told him, as well 
as she could, of that painful and grotesque inter- 
view. 

“You understand, of course,” she explained, “that 
he was half insane with excitement. Otherwise, no 
such idea could have entered his head. He might 
as well have begged me to promise that I wouldn’t 
marry the King of Spain — or Briggs the butler. . . . 
But Beau — ” She was very eager to tell him every- 
thing. For some obscure reason something like their 
old relations seemed, at least on the girl’s side, to 
have recurred between them. “Beau, Mr. Blake 
did begin, this morning, to — say that he — liked me. 
That was before I had told him of my engagement.” 
She kept her eyes turned away, and she did not know 
that her cheeks were flushed a little, but the man 
standing near, watchful and grave, saw it all. 

“You see,” she said, “when I met him in New 
York I liked him. He seemed very — nice. But he 
never came near me when it could be helped. I 
thought he disliked me. And when I met him yes- 
terday at Cedar Hill he was almost rude. So then 
205 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


I was sure of it. It made me angry, because I wanted 
to be grateful to him and — and hospitable, and all 
that, on account of his saving my life. He made me 
angry, and that was why I said to you what I did about 
him when I came on here yesterday morning. It 
seems I — misunderstood him. He — Well, it doesn’t 
matter anyhow, because, since father feels so bitter, 
I couldn’t possibly see Mr. Blake. I dare say he’ll 
go back to town at once. He’ll realize that his 
staying on in the neighborhood would make it 
awkward for everybody. 

“So now,” she said, with a little laugh, “now you 
know all about everything.” And Temple nodded 
slowly, saying: 

“Yes, now I know all about it.” He regarded her 
for another brief moment, and began to walk up and 
down the length of the porch, his hands stuck in the 
pockets of his coat and his head bent. Once he 
halted and made as if he would speak, then shook 
his head, and once more took up his silent tramp. 
But after a little time Vittoria rose to her feet with a 
sigh. She said: 

“ I think, if you don’t mind, Beau, I’ll just go home. 
I want to think — about my mother. Maggie Calla- 
han has given me so much to think about. I want 
to be quite alone. You understand, don’t you, 
Beau ? You always understand.” 

“Always, I hope,” said he. “I hope so, my dear.” 
He blew his dog-whistle, and a groom came presently 
round from the side of the house, leading the two 
206 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


horses. He put Vittoria up, sent his own nag back 
to the stable, and stood watching while the girl rode 
away. 

She reined in a few paces off, to call back: 

“Where is M. de Coucy ? I forgot to ask about 
him.” Temple told her that the Frenchman was 
riding — a feat he managed and enjoyed with the aid 
of a leading-rein held by his servant, who rode close 
beside him. So then Vittoria went on down the hill, 
and the man stood on the steps of his porch and 
watched her out of sight. 


XVI 


TWO LETTERS 


ITTORIA wrote a letter to Richard Blake, 



V She wrote it after much thoughtful hesitation, 
and she made many false starts, and even tore up two 
completed efforts. This is what she finally sent to 
him: 

“My dear Mr. Blake: 

“I am writing to you out of what seems to me something 
like a sense of obligation — obligation to you and to my dear 
mother and to your father. If there were any probability of 
our meeting soon again, I could tell you what I wish to say 
much more easily and much better than I can write it, but 
you will understand, after the dreadful scene in the garden 
yesterday, how impossible it will be for me to see you, in 
view of my father’s bitterness and hard feeling. 

“And I need not, I am sure, even make any apology for 
his words, though they were insulting and unbearable. 
You know the cause of them, and you know how he feels 
about what happened so long ago. If nothing more had 
developed than what we learned together from my father’s 
words, I should have nothing to say; but I know a great deal 
more now, and I must tell you some of it for the sake of 
your own peace of mind, and for the sake of those two who 
loved each other so much that they broke the law. You 


208 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


see, I am aware that your father is far away, so that you 
cannot reach him, and I can’t bear to have you go on for a 
long time in ignorance of the real truth. 

“So here is what I have learned from certain people who 
know — ” 

She went on to tell Blake what she had heard from 
Beau Temple and from Mrs. Callahan, Bianca’s 
nurse, but she put it much more briefly than it had 
come to her, and she tried to spare her father as far 
as she was able. She was anxious merely to clear 
her mother’s memory of dishonor, and to clear 
Creighton Blake’s name also. 

She concluded: 

“You see how it was with them. My poor mother’s life 
had become unendurable, impossible. She would have 
borne it even then, I am sure, or perhaps have killed herself, 
but he took her little child from her, and that was too much. 
I want you to know that, for my part, I understand and for- 
give and am glad. To be sure, she died, my beautiful 
mother, even though what she longed for came to her, but I 
like to think that she died happy. Indeed, I am sure that 
she did, for she had love at last and understanding and 
tenderness— her sunlight. She had one perfect year. It 
must have been a perfect year, must it not ? It would hurt 
me very cruelly to think that she suffered, or regretted what 
she had done, or that any littlest thing came between the 
two of them to dim that sunlight. 

“I want you to know that I feel no bitterness toward 
your father, rather a deep and earnest gratitude for what 
he did— it is as if he had saved my mother from death. 
Indeed, did he not save her from worse than that ? This 
209 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


sounds a little dreadful for me to say, I expect, but it is true, 
and I mean it. It sounds, and is, of course, disloyal to my 
own father, but I cannot help it. 

“And that is all I have to tell you. Most people would 
maintain that it is very wrong to tell you anything at all, 
but I believe it is right. You ought to know. I suppose 
we shall not see each other for a long time, perhaps not until 
after my marriage-^for which there is as yet no date ar- 
ranged — since I shall be here in the country until that oc- 
curs. Afterward we are more or less likely to meet in New 
York. And so, since this is a long good-bye, let me try once 
more to say ‘thank you’ (such poor and absurdly inadequate 
words!) for what you did for me once when I was in grave 
danger. Do you know, it is very sweet to me to think that 
Creighton Blake’s son saved my life. My mother would 
be glad of it, wouldn’t she ? 

“Good-bye! I will say — I can say no more of what 
passed between us on our last meeting — I mean before my 
father came — than to beg you to go back to your own good 
life, which I know you have loved well, and forget that you 
ever, for a moment, wished to give it up. I do not ask you 
or want you to forget me, quite, for there is a certain intimate 
bond which must always be between Creighton Blake’s son 
and Bianca Fleming’s daughter. Remember me, but in 
another way, and I shall remember you, and wish you every- 
thing that is good. Sincerely yours, 

“ Vittoria Fleming.” 

She was a woman, and therefore added a postscript: 

“ Perhaps when you write to your father, or when you 
next talk with him, you will tell him how I feel about it 
all. I think I should like him to know.” 


210 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Vittoria sent this letter to Cedar Hill, for though 
she thought it probable that Blake had returned to 
town, she knew no other address. And, indeed, he 
had gone away, despite the Parings’ protest, as she 
afterward learned by telephone from Beatrix. But 
within two days she had an answer from him, and 
when it was put into her hands from the afternoon 
post took it down into her rose garden to read. It 
was a long letter, but she read it over two or three 
times, then put it into the bosom of her frock for safe- 
keeping, and read it once again when she dressed for 
dinner. She fell into a way of carrying the folded, 
close-written sheets about with her — always in her 
bosom for safe-keeping — and when she was out on 
her solitary walks or was sitting alone in her garden 
enclosure she read them over until she knew the letter 
almost by heart. Then one day she, as it were, 
caught herself at it, perceived that the paper bore 
signs of age and wear, realized that it had gone next 
her heart for a week, and locked it away in a sort of 
paroxysm of shamed self-scorn. 

Blake looked upon the matter exactly as she did, 
and as she had felt sure he would do, but he seemed 
to have had small need of portraits or other ex- 
traneous aids in coming to his conclusion; he seemed 
to have reached it at once, in a single leap, taking his 
bearings from what he knew of his father, what he 
observed in Pender Fleming, and what he guessed of 
Pender’s wife. But he expressed himself as being 
very much touched and affected by what Vittoria 
15 21 1 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


told him in her letter, and immensely grateful to her 
for the telling. So he came to the other matter upon 
which she had dwelt in conclusion. He thanked her 
for her expressions, but he said that what she asked 
of him was impossible. He seemed to have used great 
care in his language, so that he should not appear 
to be making love to another man’s fiancee, but he 
said, as he had said during that interview in the 
walled garden, that he could not give up hope of her, 
for the hope was his life. He was not an eloquent 
man, either in spoken or written speech, but there 
was something in the ring of the short, terse sentences 
that he spoke or wrote which was much better, in- 
finitely more appealing, than any flowery expressions 
could have been, and there was more eloquence in 
the things he left unsaid in this letter than in the 
things he tried to express. They stood out in blazing 
characters from between the written lines — the fierce 
and tender and compelling love words that Blake 
w T ould not write — and Vittoria read them there, and 
her heart beat faster because of them, and she turned 
a little pale. And once or twice when she had been 
reading the letter she closed her eyes and called 
up the image of Richard Blake before her — only that 
is saying a little too much, for she made no actual 
effort; she waited an instant in a sort of blind silence 
of the spirit, and he came. But when she had done 
that she was ashamed, and reproached herself, and 
put the whole matter away in the back of her mind — 
at the bottom of the well. 


212 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


So Blake went away, since that seemed the only 
possible thing to do, but he did not go very far away, 
and he had no intention whatever of returning, as 
Vittoria begged him to do, to the old life which he 
had loved so well. That love was gone forever. 
He sat, as it were, apart, on the horizon line, and 
watched and bode his time. 

But there was no doubt that his retirement from 
the field removed an intolerable strain, and left those 
at Standish or in its neighborhood to settle down 
into a pleasant state of leisurely calm. Vittoria went 
often to Cedar Hill, and Beatrix Faring came almost 
as often to Standish. The two fell into a habit of 
riding together nearly every morning while the elder 
woman’s lord and master toiled laboriously and re- 
sentfully over his monograph. Beau Temple rode 
with them sometimes, and between him and Beatrix 
Faring there began to spring up a friendship which 
afterward grew and ripened and far outlasted the 
brief span of events with which this chronicle has to 
do, and bids fair to endure as long as they both shall 
live — a good friendship, born of natural sympathy 
and understanding and mutual admiration. 

Early in the course of this period Vittoria had a 
dinner-party at Standish, to which the Farings and 
Beau Temple and M. de Coucy were bidden. Pen- 
der Fleming came to the head of his table fairly 
clanking, as it were, in an armor of grim determina- 
tion to do his utmost, and, without doubt, he did it. 
Never was a braver attempt on the part of the dead 
213 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


to live again, but at that it was a dire performance — 
hopeless from the beginning, and, afterward, when 
the two women had gone to the drawing-room for 
their coffee, they laughed over it quite frankly and 
without malice. 

“My dear child, ” Beatrix said, “it’s no good, 
really. The poor man suffers quite too much. I 
could hardly eat for pity of him. We mustn’t make 
him do it any more. You must talk to him to- 
morrow and tell him that we all understand how he 
has got out of the way of company, and that nobody’s 
feelings will be hurt if he doesn’t turn up at any little 
parties we may have at Cedar Hill or that Mr. 
Temple may have at his place. Fancy! he’s prob- 
ably staying awake at night to agonize over the 
prospect of interminable entertainments. You must 
put him out of pain at once.” So on the next morn- 
ing Vittoria followed this suggestion, and while her 
father only said a gruff “Yes, yes, quite so!” or some- 
thing like that, she saw the immense relief that spread 
over his face, and knew what a load had gone from 
his mind. 

So for a little time the three households, excluding 
the master of Standish, went freely back and forth, 
rode, played tennis and golf, motored in the Farings’ 
cars, met for dinner, and altogether amused them- 
selves very successfully. It was, for Vittoria, a time 
of obscure development, of hidden growth. She 
was inexplicably aware of it. Very deep within her 
something was moving, like an underground river, 
214 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


very slow but irresistible. She did not know what 
it was nor whither it tended, but she knew that it was 
there, hidden, silent, flowing mysteriously on toward 
regions unguessed, and she wondered about it, but 
incuriously because she was rather apathetic just 
then. 

She was in a state of passive content, or something 
very like content. She had her beautiful mother to 
comfort her night and day — that strange and thrilling 
story to reflect upon and to dream over; she had the 
companionship of Beatrix Faring, of whom she was 
truly fond, and she had Beau Temple — cheerfulest, 
most tactful, least exigent of all lovers. Even in her 
mental attitude toward her father — very bitter after 
the first hearing of that pathetic history of long ago — 
she had come to a quieter, more tolerant state. She 
had not forgiven him and she never would, but she 
understood the man’s nature much more readily than 
most young girls could have done, and she realized 
that, as Beau Temple had said, he had a great deal 
in himself to contend with. Still, the gulf which was 
always between daughter and father had been widened 
a little by her new knowledge. She pitied him and 
made certain excuses for him, but she could not forget 
that he had taken her mother’s little child from her. 

She saw Beau Temple very often. He had es- 
tablished a habit of coming to Standish every after- 
noon, however the mornings might have been spent, 
and the two had an hour alone in Vittoria’s garden. 
The man was wise and watchful — held himself with 

215 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


a hard hand. Vittoria did not know it at the time, 
but afterward she knew, and appreciated, and realized 
how much it must have cost him. He managed that 
their old relation should seem but little changed, and 
he managed so well that she was quite unconscious 
of the fact. They spoke often of their life to come, 
made plans and discussed them — settled it that there 
was to be much travel in summer and autumn, the 
late winter in New York for gayety’s sake — a month 
of the season in London later on, and odd times at 
Lone Tree Hill. 

“After we’ve been very gay and dissolute for a year 
or two,” Vittoria said, “then we shall probably want 
to settle down quietly once more — here in the country. 
For, of course, the books must go on. Consider the 
feelings of the ‘chosen few’ ! But at first, Beau dear, 
I do want to play. I’ve had so little play, you know 
— just enough to want a lot more.” And Temple 
said, emphatically: 

“You shall have it! You shall have all you want 
of it. I’m no Barbe-Bieu. You shall play to your 
heart’s content, and I’ll come gambolling along be- 
hind as giddily as my rheumatic old legs can manage. 

“I wonder,” he said, with a questioning frown — 
“I wonder, now, if I sha’n’t seem a rather absurd and 
heavy-footed elderly goat ? I wonder if I sha’n’t seem 
to drag upon you ?” The question seemed to be pre- 
sented to Vittoria’s mind rather than to his own. 
He regarded her keenly. 

But the girl was a little angry, and said: 

216 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“ Don’t be an idiot, Beau! You seem to be mak- 
ing yourself out about sixty. If you want to adopt 
a vieillard pose you’ll have to make some important 
changes in personal appearance. ‘Elderly goat,’ 
indeed !” 

He flushed a little with pleasure at her scorn, but 
still shook his head. 

“Well, I might get fat,” he pointed out, and this 
time roused her. She cried: 

“You shall do nothing of the kind! That’s one 
thing I won’t endure. I’ll not have you fat. You’ll 
have to get up early in the morning and run eight 
miles before breakfast with a sweater on. You’ll 
have to take the anti-things that one reads about 
in the papers. I won’t have you fat. We’ll agree 
upon a weight — a maximum, and whenever you reach 
that you’ll have to live on biscuits and hot water 
for a fortnight. Oh, it’s very easy if you’re firm 
about it.” 

“I perceive,” said Beau Temple, “that there is to 
be some firmness in the family whether it belongs to 
me or not. You map out one of the most peaceful 
old ages I have ever heard of, but, if you don’t mind, 
I think I should like a plain, unostentatious poison 
when that maximum weight comes true. It’s both 
simpler and more certain.” 

Afterward when Vittoria looked back upon this 
fortnight of daily meetings she was astonished to find 
how almost completely they were steeped in this 
spirit of mild and rather foolish banter. She won- 
217 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


dered if that had all been Temple’s doing, or if he 
had just started it so and let it take its course, or if 
he had been merely passive in the matter. In any 
case she knew, then, that he had pressed her with no 
lover’s ardor, made no demands upon her, begged 
for no vows of affection. She was touched and grate- 
ful when she remembered that, and she would have 
been both touched and grateful at the time if she had 
realized it. 

Afterward she remembered also an odd little scene 
which was a sort of keynote to all this — very signifi- 
cant if she had but known. It chanced that their 
first two or three meetings, after the engagement was 
made definite, were within sight or hearing of some- 
body. The first time, as has been told, a gardener 
was near, the second time a groom. So it was that 
the first occasion upon which they met quite alone 
was in Vittoria’s garden a day or two after Richard 
Blake’s return to New York. Vittoria was sitting 
there with a magazine when Temple arrived, and she 
had expected him and was not taken by surprise. 
She rose to her feet with a little exclamation of wel- 
come, and put out her hands. The man took them, 
moved near and bent over her. She had been used 
to kissing him in a child-like fashion all her life, and 
she raised her beautiful face as calmly as she had 
done ten years before — not a gleam in her of the 
consciousness of a difference. So they stood for a 
brief instant, and it is not improbable that pulses 
quickened and throbbed and beat in the man. But 
218 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

he made a sound like a little sigh, bent his head aside, 
kissed her cheek as a hundred times before, and 
stood away from her. 

Vittoria remembered that, and it brought tears to 
her eyes. 


XVII 


MR. TEMPLE IS TRIED IN THE FIRE — 

“TT has only just gone twelve,” said Beatrix Faring, 
1 looking at the watch on her wrist. “Let Jimmy 
take your horse round with mine, and help me use 
up some of the hour and a half before luncheon — 
unless you’ll stay and lunch with us, which Would be 
better still.” The two had been riding together. 
Temple took her down, and the stable-boy led away 
the horses. 

“I can’t lunch with you to-day,” he said, “because 
De Coucy will be expecting me, but I’ll stay for a 
half hour with pleasure. Shall we go into the house 
or stop here on the porch ?” 

“We’ll go to my little summer-house thing,” Mrs. 
Faring decided. “It’s shady at this time of the day, 
and the view is too lovely for words. I’ve had a 
comfortable seat put in it, and an awning stretched 
overhead so that beasts can’t drop into my hair, 
and I often sit there with a book or with my letters.” 
She fastened her riding-skirt, and they set off across 
the turf toward the tiny summer-house which stood 
on the brink of the hill. 

The little structure had but three sides, and they 
220 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


were mere latticed trellises where Virginia-creeper 
clung thick and strong. There was a mouldy roof, 
from whose varied fauna one was protected by the 
subjoined awning, and a mouldy floor which was 
covered by a rug. The comfortable seat of which 
Mrs. Faring had spoken stood invitingly empty, and 
beside it a table was littered with magazines and 
with writing things, and with boxes of cigarettes. 
Beatrix had not spoken over-strongly of the view. 
It was, indeed, too lovely for words — a wide sweep of 
rolling country which extended fanwise from Mickle- 
ford at the south to the high green northern hills: 
very many miles of wood and meadow and fat, 
tilled land, with here and there the odd solitary up- 
cropping rises such as Standish and Lone Tree and 
Cedar Hill lay upon — a very peaceful picture of 
green and brown domed over by blue, unclouded 
sky, smudged here and there by village smoke, 
picked out, as to high lights, by the white of village 
steeples. 

Beatrix Faring made herself comfortable at one 
end of the double seat, and, after a space of silent 
gazing, the man joined her. 

“You have cigarettes, of course ?” she said. 
“You’d better smoke them than accept mine, be- 
cause mine are some silly little Russian ones that a 
misguided friend sent me. But for a naturally 
thrifty disposition I should have thrown them away 
long ago. Instead I resentfully consume them, 
hoping against hope that the three hundred I have 
221 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


left will turn mouldy or something. Of course they 
won't.” 

She lighted one of the maligned cylinders, and 
leaned back in her place, watching the man who sat 
beside her silent, his hands clasped over his knees, 
his face turned out over the sunlit valley. And after 
a somewhat long pause she said, still watching 
him: 

“Do you know, being engaged doesn’t seem to 
agree with you, altogether. You don’t look — well. 
You look rather tired and fagged.” Temple turned 
to her with a laugh. 

“Oh, that’s in the part!” said he. “That’s all in 
the stage directions. Lover’s pallor — frenzied eye 
— careless dress — general neglect — all that sort of 
thing!” But she shook her head at him. 

“Those are the stage directions — or used to be — 
for the hopeless lover, not the successful one. You 
ought to be going about in gay waistcoats and a 
silly, perpetual smile. No, it hasn’t agreed with you. 
I wonder — 

“I believe,” she mocked, “that you’re a little 
afraid. I believe you’ve been looking ahead at the 
mangled fragments that your nice, quiet, peaceful life 
is going to be torn into. It will be a change, won’t 
it?” 

“Yes,” said Beaumont Temple, smiling. “Yes, 
it certainly will be a change.” 

“The ‘chosen few,’ now,” she said, still in her 
gently mocking tone. “What will they think of it? 

222 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Their sacred apostle marrying a giddy young girl 
and sitting up late of nights at dancing - parties. 
Dear me! What will the ‘chosen few’ think about 
it?” 

“Damn the ‘chosen few!’ ” said Temple, violently, 
but she shook her head at him. 

“Oh no! You can’t dismiss them with a damn. 
You made them. They’re yours. They hold up 
their little bills to you to be fed, and you’re the 
responsible feeding ‘party.’ You can’t shirk your 
responsibilities like that, you know. Gracious me! 
Suppose marriage should suddenly turn you into a 
romanticist! Just suppose that! It might, you 
know. Beaumont Temple writing about rose gar- 
dens and first kisses and hard-hearted parents! Oh 
me, oh my! The very thought gives me a chill.” 

Seemingly it did not chill the apostle of the 
“chosen few,” for he laughed, and after a moment 
laughed again. But abruptly Beatrix Faring dropped 
her tone of banter, and she regarded the man for a 
little space in grave silence. At its end — 

“We’ve become what one might call very good 
friends,” she said. “Haven’t we?” 

“I think one might call it that without exaggera- 
tion,” said he. “I hope we have become very good 
friends indeed. It — is a friendship I shouldn’t like 
to think of doing without, now that I know its 
value.” 

“We’ve both,” said the woman, “seen a good deal, 
and suffered somewhat, and grown, I hope, wiser 
223 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


than we were. I’m inclined to take advantage of our 
friendship to speak plainly. May I ?” And when 
he said, “Please do,” she went on, choosing her 
words with a slow care: 

“ I know that dear girl rather well, and I think I 
know you more than a little. YouTl be very good 
to her, very forbearing, full of self-sacrifice, full of 
tenderness. SheTl be in wise and gentle hands, and 
yet — I wonder if it’s wise for you two to marry ? 
I think Pm afraid about it.” She saw that the man’s 
face was grave and a little pale. She saw his lips 
move dumbly, and thought they tried to say “Why? 
Why?” 

“The child is so young,” she said — “so very 
young, and so eager. She has such a passionate 
hunger for — what shall I say ? — for the love that 
only a young man has it in him to give: the young 
love — the young, fierce, tumultuous love that has 
no humor in it. Afterward the fires burn lower — 
leaping flame sinks to the steady, enduring glow. 
We both know that, you and I. And we know that 
the quiet, steady fire burns longest — warms us for a 
lifetime — that flames leap and devour for only a little 
while. But we wouldn’t have gone without the leap- 
ing flames, not for anything in this world! We 
cherish the wonderful memory of them. They’re 
romance. That’s what they are — romance. And 
they burn only when one is very young, and has, for 
the time being, no humor.” 

She looked up at Beaumont Temple challengingly. 

224 % 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“You’ve had your romance — or tales I have heard 
were lies.” 

“Yes,” said he, chafing his broad hands together, 
and looking down upon them. 

“Yes,” he said, in a low voice. “I’ve had my 
romance — and buried it — long ago. And yet — ” 
A little flush came over his face. 

“It is,” said he, “an odd fact that, even at four- 
and-forty, the flames can leap up in one — amazing 
flames. I hadn’t thought it possible, but I know it 
to be true. I — don’t go to her with quite an old 
man’s love, you know. It’s hardly May and Decem- 
ber between Vittoria and me.” 

“No,” said Beatrix Faring. “Shall we say, May 
and October ? Even then — ” 

“I love her!” cried the man, with a sudden sharp- 
ness. “I think I have loved her for years — and 
hoped — and waited. Would you have me give her 
up now at the last — now, when she has come to me 
of her own accord ? She trusts me — turns to me. 
She has always turned to me, brought me her 
troubles, perplexities, all her life. And she says that 
she loves me. It may not be that she — that she feels 
for me any great and overwhelming passion. She 
doesn’t, I confess. But about the need for that — I’m 
not so sure. The flames you talk of may sear and 
destroy, you know. As often as not they ravage 
instead of warming. I’m not so sure.” 

“Don’t cheat Vittoria out of her romance!” the 
woman said. And she said: 

225 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“I know that you love her. I can’t pretend to at- 
tack that. And I know she loves you. But is it 
in the right way ? Don’t you see ? I’m fighting 
with you for Vittoria’s youth — for her right to that 
mad and foolish and divine and absurd young love 
that you’d cheat her of. If you marry her, one of 
two things will happen — either the two of you will go 
through a sort of absurd parody of the kind of life 
Vittoria loves and longs for (and you’d play an un- 
becoming part there, my friend. You would, truly), 
or else you will settle down quietly here in the coun- 
try to the sort of life you yourself have, for the past 
fifteen or twenty years, lived and enjoyed. In other 
words, one of you must inevitably be sacrificed to the 
other, for your tastes and desires are as far apart 
as pole from pole. Can real happiness come of 
such a marriage as that ?” 

Beaumont Temple took his head into his hands. 

“You speak very plain words,” said he. “You 
paint in cardinal colors. But I thank you for it. 
The wounds of a friend. . . . Of course any sacrifice 
made would be made by me. That is understood 
between us. And I think I could conceal the sacri- 
fice. Perhaps not. I don’t know. Doubtless she 
would in time find out. Vittoria is not dull.” He 
dropped his hands and faced the woman with a 
little wry smile. The scene was costing him some- 
thing. His face looked thinner. 

“I seem to see the black cap on your head,” said 
he. “ I seem to be listening to something like a death 
226 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


sentence — though I am not yet sure that I concur 
in it, and that, alas, is necessary. One reads one’s 
own sentence in these vital matters. One is both 
judge and hangman. I’m not yet sworn into office. 
It wants thought.” His eyes sharpened. 

“You talk much of romance and young love. 
You’re speaking with a purpose — something beyond. 
What is it you have in your mind ?” 

“I have Richard Blake in my mind,” she said. 
“I think the child loves him, and I know very well 
that he loves her.” 

Temple gave an exclamation, and for some little 
time thereafter was silent, with bent head — his hands 
restless upon his knees. 

Mrs. Faring made out that he said, finally: 

“The black cap, indeed!” 

He looked up at her. 

“I feared it,” said he. “I was afraid of that, but 
I wouldn’t face my fear. I was cowardly. When 
the thought came I hustled it away and tried to pre- 
tend that it wasn’t there. Creighton Blake’s son!” 

“He saved her life, you know.” 

“Yes. A life for a life. The score would seem to 
be even, poetically speaking. But Pender will never 
see it in that light. Pender’s inflexible — as hard as 
granite. . . . Creighton Blake’s son! Ah, I have 
somewhat of Pender’s feeling there. Rather any 
one else in the world! Any one! There’s something 
terrible in the thought.” 

“There is nothing terrible in it to me,” said 

16 227 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Beatrix Faring. “I see beauty in it — the white 
magic — something bigger and simpler and more 
fatal than we often see in this age of ours: the 
consummation of tremendous things begun long ago. 
It seems to me that it must have been meant to 
happen. I cannot believe that Vittoria Fleming and 
Richard Blake fell in with each other by accident 
— that he saved her life by wanton chance. I think 
those two, whether they know it or not, are playing 
out their part in a great drama. Don’t stand in the 
way! Don’t interfere!” Her eyes widened a little 
upon Beau Temple’s eyes — showed something like 
dread. 

“Don’t get in the way!” she said again. “I have 
a very strong feeling that even if you should — you 
couldn’t stop the play those two are playing. You 
might make it worse — pitiable — tragic, like that older 
case — the — shall I say it ? — the first act. But I have 
a feeling that you couldn’t stop it, you know.” 

She added, quaintly: 

“Are the Fates still alive, do you think, and 
working, in these matter-of-fact Christian days of 
ours ?” 

“I am forced to believe they are,” said the man. 
“Fate — since we must give a name to forces we see so 
dimly, know so little of — ‘Fate’ is as good a name 
as another.” He looked upon her heavily, with sad 
eyes, and she saw that she had stirred him to the 
bottom. Yet there was strength left in him to cry 
out. He demanded: 


228 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“How shall one know that she loves this man 
And Beatrix said: 

“I have a woman’s eyes. I have seen.” 

“Yet she turned from him to me.” 

“Oh, my friend!” said the woman, “is not that 
proof enough ? Consider the circumstances of that 
turning. She loves him. She may not know it 
fully. She doesn’t confess it even to her secret soul, 
I’ll be bound. But she loves him, and she’ll go to 
him in the end, even though laws be broken and 
hearts with them. Don’t help to set laws in the 
way !” 

“There’s Pender!” said the man. “Even were I 
to clear the path for her, there remains Pender, loom- 
ing above. You know the rash promise Vittoria 
made to him. She’ll keep that. She never breaks 
her word. She’ll break her heart, first.” 

“Yet, in the end she’ll go,” said Beatrix Faring. 
“Hearts break, and then the strength goes — the 
strength to resist. Little by little it goes — trickling 
away — and then comes a sort of blind madness — a 
fury of despair. And then the end. I speak of 
what I know. Mr. Fleming must be made to give 
Vittoria back her promise.” 

Beau Temple broke into a brief, mirthless sound of 
laughter. 

“Who can make Pender do that ?” 

“You, perhaps,” said she. 

The man stared at her whitely. And after a pause 
he said: 


229 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“You drive hard.” 

“I am fighting for Vittoria Fleming’s happiness,” 
said she. “And perhaps I’m fighting for yours too. 
I fight as I can. But I think I have said no more 
than the truth. Can you deny anything I have said 
— in spirit ? — the words are nothing.” 

“I neither affirm nor deny,” he said. “I wait — 
and reflect.” And after a pause he spoke again. 

“I want her to be happy. I want happiness for 
her. That’s all. What if, in giving her her free- 
dom now, I abandon her to misery ? Who can be 
sure ?” 

“No one,” said Mrs. Faring. “No one can be 
sure of the future, I think. One can only do what 
seems to be right.” 

Temple had risen to his feet, and, as he said the 
last words, he stood facing the woman, his back to 
the wide view of rolling hills. By chance his eyes 
met a space of the latticework where the vines had 
died away. He said: 

“A young man is coming down from the house 
in this direction. Who can it be ?” Beatrix 
Faring turned to look, and turned back with flushed 
cheeks. 

“It is Richard Blake,” she said. “I was going to 
tell you that he is here. He came for a day or two 
only, in response to a call from Harry, who wanted 
to consult him about this monograph matter. He 
will go back to town to - morrow, and Vittoria 
need not know that he has been here. Shall I go 
230 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and take him away somewhere while you get your 
horse ?” 

Beaumont Temple drew a little sigh. 

“Let him come!” said he. “And, if you do not 
mind, leave us alone together.” 


XVIII 


AND PROVES GOOD METAL — OLD FRIENDS QUARREL 

T O Miss Vittoria Fleming, emerging from the 
house after lunch with half a dozen magazines 
under one arm and a box of chocolates under the 
other (Mr. Hennessy, with a chop-bone, at her feet), 
appeared Beaumont Temple, riding up the hill. He 
drew rein when he was near, and sat regarding her 
with at least a semblance of mirth — it may well be 
that far other emotions warred within him. He said : 

“This has all the look of a projected debauch. I 
come malapropos.” 

“On the contrary,” said she, “you come just in the 
nick of time, delightful person. Send your horse 
round — ah, here is Jeremiah to take him! — and 
come down into the garden with me! You shall have 
half the chocolates — all but the cocoanut ones; only 
sheer physical brutality shall wrest those from me.” 

Temple dismounted, seeming to move with less 
than his usual lightness — a little stiffly, as became his 
middle age. He said: 

“This is not revelry you offer. You ask me to 
connive at manslaughter. Half that box of horrors 
devoured, I should never again rise from my bed.” 
232 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


They went down through the gardens (Mr. Hen- 
nessy, with his chop-bone, at their heels), past the pool 
of the goldfish, and so at last into Vittoria’s brick- 
walled sanctuary. There the girl laid down her 
burdens upon a bench, and turned about. She 
held Beau Temple by the arms with her two hands 
and lifted her face to him, while the scandalized Mr. 
Hennessy averted his gaze. 

The man became suddenly grave, with an odd and 
joyless gravity, standing still in her grasp. He 
asked : 

“Do you love me, my dear?” And she gave a 
little sweet rippling laugh, and nodded her head like 
a child. 

For an instant his face was bitter, then a sudden 
dark flush swept it. He put out his arms and caught 
her up in them, crushed her against him with an 
almost brutal violence. The girl’s face was close to 
his, nearly touching it. She saw his eyes blaze with 
something she had never before seen in them, felt 
his swift and uneven breathing. Terror woke in her 
— a very frenzy of terror and repulsion. She cried 
out and began to struggle, pushing against his face 
with her two hands, writhing in his hold. She said: 

“No! no! no! let me go! You frighten me. I’m 
frightened! Please, Beau!” Mr. Hennessy began 
to bark loudly. 

Temple loosed his hold and set the girl gently 
away from him, using care, lest, in her panic of haste, 
she stumble and fall. The flush was gone from his 
233 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


face, and he covered it with his hands, standing 
bowed. 

But after a long moment so, he felt her hands once 
more upon his arm, and looked up. The girl held 
him, leaned toward him, her lips quivering, tears in 
her eyes. She said: 

“Ah, Beau, I’m sorry! Forgive me, dear Beau. 
I — you frightened me a little. That was all. Star- 
tled me. I didn’t expect — please forgive me ! I know. 
I’m not a fool. Only, we’ve never before been very 
— loverlike, have we ? Not in — that way, I mean. 
That’s why I was startled. Will you forgive me for 
struggling against you, Beau ?” 

He took her hands, smiling. But she saw that his 
face was pale and oddly drawn. 

“It is for me to ask your forgiveness, child. I 
wanted — there was something I wanted to know — 
had to find out. I went about it brutally. Forgive 
me, but I had to know.” 

He slipped his arm about her shoulders, holding 
her very loosely before him. 

“The truth is,” said he — “the truth is, my dear, 
we’ve been making a mistake. I’ve been afraid of 
it for a long time — at last, quite sure. This — a 
moment ago — this was nothing, a sort of little test, 
to make certainty more certain. We both know, 
I think.” 

She could not answer him for a little while — stood 
with her head bowed against his shoulder, her face 
hidden. 


234 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


What the man said was so true! She knew at last. 
That single close instant had made the truth plain 
to her. The utter panic-stricken terror of dreadful 
unknown things was cold at her heart still. The 
passion which should have leaped to meet his passion 
was not in her — not for him. In its stead that vir- 
ginal pride, the warder of the sanctuary, shrank back, 
cried aloud, as against threatened outrage. She 
knew now, at last, that she could never marry him. 

She cried his name in a kind of sob, her face 
hidden against the man’s shoulder. And he said, 
soothing her — the true and tried Beau Temple of so 
many years — he said: 

“I know. I know, child. And I want you to 
understand that there is no blame in all this, save 
upon me. The blame is mine altogether. I was old 
enough, and should have been wise enough, to know 
that the thing was impossible from the beginning. 
Well, thank Heaven! we’ve found it out in time.” 

“Oh Beau!” she cried, “is it impossible? Must 
we give it up ?” She knew. She was still sick at 
heart with the knowledge, but she was full of sorrow 
for him in his bitter hour. Her knees were trembling 
a little, and she turned away and sat down upon the 
wooden bench, covering her face. Her movement 
dislodged the heap of magazines, and they slid to the 
ground and lay about her feet, but the little box of 
chocolate sweets, pink-glazed, gilt-lettered, stood in 
its place, and seemed to grin a smug grin — intolerably 
preposterous in the face of that sober scene. 

235 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Temple began to speak — soften — explain — tell 
how he had watched her from the beginning of their 
engagement, suspected that all was not quite well, 
suspected why, put two and two together. And 
he even told a little of his talk that morning with 
Beatrix Faring. He made feeble attempts to cheer 
her up, to add something like humor where there was 
precious little of such to be found. He seemed to 
himself to be talking dreary and endless nonsense, 
and very likely it was so, but it is doubtful if Vittoria 
heard any of it at all. She sat for a long time, her 
face bowed over her hands, and made no movement 
of any kind. But at last she looked up very sadly, 
and interrupted that lamentable flow. She said: 

“Beau dear, it is very like you to speak of me 
only in all this — to say nothing of yourself. But how 
about you, Beau ? 

“Ah !” she cried, “have I brought you nothing after 
all these years but grief and bitterness ? After all 
you’ve done for me, always, shall I give you back 
nothing but a broken heart ?” 

“No!” he exclaimed, strongly. “No, child! I 
won’t have you think that. You give me now, and 
always will give me, I think, the most I ought ever 
to have expected or wished. I had a period of mad- 
ness and dreamed a sort of mad dream. Let’s try 
to forget it. It could never have been anything but 
a dream. Let’s go back to the old, sweet, comfortable 
footing once more, and, please God! stay there for 
the rest of our lives. It’s where we belong.” 

236 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Can you do that, Beau ?” she demanded, watch- 
ing his face. “Can you go back ?” And he said: 

“I promise you. Try me, and see!” He pulled 
out his watch and consulted it. 

“I must be off. I want to talk to Pender. Per- 
haps I shall see you again afterward.” He turned 
away, but Vittoria rose and went to him, held him 
with her arms, and laid her beautiful face upon his 
shoulder. She seemed to find no words to say. She 
was extraordinarily tongue-tied — a strange paralysis 
upon her — shaken still, within and without, by that 
illuminating moment — aghast at her new knowledge. 
She seemed to herself to have been moving in some 
strange, very feverish dream wherein the one dear 
being whom she had always loved and leaned upon 
became suddenly transformed into a terrible stranger 
with fierce, flaming eyes and brutal arms. She 
was sick to her very soul. The man patted her head 
awkwardly, and after a moment turned away again. 
At a little distance he said, over his shoulder: 

“Oh, I saw Richard Blake. He’s back at Cedar 
Hill for a day or two, on some business of Faring’s. 
I — talked to him. So he knows.” 

Vittoria cried out sharply, and called after the man, 
but he shook his head and went on up the garden 
path toward the house. 

He found Pender Fleming where that recluse was 
always to be found — in his big, dim, book-lined room, 
sitting quite idle over a heavy folio which was spread 
237 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


out upon his knees. Pender looked up with that 
strange contortion of the face which he meant for a 
smile. He said : 

“Ah, Beau! Come in! Come in! Pm glad to 
see you. My eyes are tired to-day. I can’t do much. 
Pm glad you came.” 

“You won’t be, presently,” said Beaumont Temple, 
standing square and sturdy before the other’s chair. 

“Pve come armed,” he said. “We’ve got to do 
battle here to-day, you and I.” And Pender Flem- 
ing peered up with his short-sighted eyes, vaguely 
alarmed, dimly apprehensive. 

Temple had rehearsed several diplomatic openings 
for what he wished to say, but had thrown them aside 
one after the other. Diplomacy was of little use 
with Pender. Combat with him must be hand-to- 
hand — no quarter asked or given. Temple took a 
breath and struck. 

“Pve just come from Vittoria,” he said. “Pve 
been giving her back her freedom. I dare say you 
have a right to know it — and to know why.” 

“Yes,” said Pender Fleming, “I think I have that 
right.” He would seem to have had himself ex- 
traordinarily well in hand, for he made no show of 
the astonishment he must have felt — dropped at once, 
expertly as it were, into a hard, quiet tone which the 
other man knew only too well, and frowned at. 
Pender was at his worst when he spoke in that tone — 
his coldest, bitterest. He was well-nigh unapproach- 
able. 


238 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“To what,” said he, “does my daughter owe the 
honor of being jilted by you ? — if I may presume so 
far as to ask.” 

The other man scowled, but kept his temper. He 
said: 

“Well, for one thing — we may as well say the only 
thing, I suppose, for it’s quite enough — she doesn’t 
love me — not in the right way, at least.” 

Vittoria’s father waved his hand. 

“Is that,” he said, “so important, then — the 
especial kind and degree of a girl’s love ?” 

“Yes, Pender, it is,” said Beaumont Temple. 
“Strange as it may seem to you, it is. It’s so im- 
portant that we cannot go on without it. Look 
here!” He came a step nearer, so that he stood 
almost over his host, a square and earnest figure, 
frowning, his hands stuck into the pockets of his coat. 
The two made a curious contrast, the strong and 
virile man of middle age, brown from the sun and 
wind, broad-shouldered and sturdy, and that gross, 
shapeless figure in the arm-chair — the vast and still 
and pallid face in which only the eyes seemed to live 
and move, gleaming dully from under their gray 
brows. 

“Look here!” said Beaumont Temple. “We’ve 
known each other for a long time, Pender. We can 
speak frankly to each other — tell the truth. Don’t 
put on airs with me! I’m not impressed by them. 
Don’t take refuge in sarcasm! I laugh at it. Face 
me honestly and deal with me as I deal with you! 

239 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


I confess that I’ve made a bad mistake. I was a 
fool. I thought that child, who had been a sort of 
little sister to me for twenty years, could be made 
over into a lover and a wife by the miracle of a few 
words. I was a fool. Such things don’t happen — 
not once in ten thousand times. I told her how I’d 
come to feel — this spasm of second youth I found 
myself in — begged her to try to think of me in a new 
way, and she tried. As a matter of fact, I found her, 
just then, at a certain psychological crisis, though I 
didn’t know till long after — one of those womanish 
states of mind we men will never comprehend — and 
that helped me on, threw her, as one might say, 
into my arms. 

“Of course, it turned out to be quite preposterous. 
She hadn’t altered her attitude toward me by a hair’s- 
breadth. It would have been the most damnable 
of crimes to have let her go on with it. Besides — well, 
I found out where we stood, and stopped it to-day. 
No. Vittoria did not ask to be released. I did it 
myself. She’s glad it’s over. I know that. And so, 
in a fashion, am I. It would have come to ship- 
wreck sooner or later. Better find out where the 
harm is before the voyage begins.” 

Pender Fleming’s eyes gleamed alertly in his white 
and mask-like face. The rest of his great body 
might have been dead. 

“You have not yet come to the point!” said he. 
“There’s something behind all this. What is it?” 
The younger man drew a sigh. 

240 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Have it, then!” he said. 

“Pender, we poor mortals can’t fight against Fate. 
If we do, we get most hideously smashed. I do not 
wish to cause you unnecessary pain, but I must ask 
you to look back eighteen years for evidence of that. 
If Vittoria and I should marry it is all too possible 
that that old tragedy would be re-enacted, and I 
won’t expose the child to such a danger. She loves 
Richard Blake, Pender, and Richard Blake loves 
her.” 

That roused the man at last. He gave a sort of 
wailing cry, and his hands shook and rattled upon the 
wooden chair arms. His still face began to twist and 
writhe as Vittoria had once seen it do. But ab- 
ruptly the strange, silent spasm broke into terrible 
laughter, low and very mirthless. 

“You — you mean to give her up to — give her up 
to — him ?” he asked. It seemed to be impossible to 
say Richard Blake’s name. And the younger man 
said: 

“Yes, Pender. She loves him, and I believe him 
to be worthy. I talked with him to — once. I liked 
him. He is a brave and unselfish young man. In 
talking with him, I discovered, quite by chance, that 
he is the man some friends of mine — and his — told 
me about last year. I dare say they told me that his 
name was Blake, but it would have meant nothing to 
me at that time. There are hundreds of Blakes. I 
won’t go into the story, but I will say that I would 
give all I have ever achieved or ever shall achieve 
241 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


if men could honestly tell about me what these men 
told me about young Richard Blake. He’s true 
gold, Pender. The child can make no mistake in 
marrying him. I withdraw from the field. They 
love each other, and who am I to stand in love’s 
way ?” 

“You don’t happen to know,” said Vittoria’s 
father — “you don’t happen to know of a trifling 
promise she made me ?” 

“Oh yes,” said Beau Temple, “I know of it. You 
must give her back her promise, Pender. I have 
stepped out of her way to give her her chance for 
happiness. You must complete the gift. It’s all we 
two oldsters live for, I take it, eh ? — to see that child 
happy. Her happiness is ours. Well, now’s the 
time, my friend. Give her back her promise and 
your blessing with it.” 

He paused there, as if for a reply, but the other 
man was still. Not even a muscle of those pendulous 
jowls or that out-thrust lower lip twitched; only the 
eyes seemed to be alive. They looked out from the 
shadows watchful and alert, and — gleaming so, out of 
that vast immobility — there was something baleful 
about them, Temple thought, something uncanny 
and serpentlike. 

He frowned, and took a short turn across the room 
and back. 

“Of course, I understand,” said he, “that it hurts 
you to give your daughter to Creighton Blake’s son. 
I understand that. And yet, after all, why ? This 
242 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


young man certainly cannot be blamed for his father’s 
sins. He will have been, eighteen years ago, a little 
lad in school. He had nothing to do with the affair. 
Also, you must remember, that while his father took 
away, he has restored. He saved your child’s life. 
That evens matters, eh ?” Temple came to an 
impatient stop before his host. 

“Come, Pender!” said he. “Don’t sit there like 
a make-believe Oriental image. Man, speak up! 
Say you’ll let the child off her promise! You’ll have 
to do it in the end, you know. Make a virtue of the 
necessity, and do it handsomely now. You’ll be well 
repaid in love and gratitude — and that’s good coin. 
Speak up!” 

“Never, so long as I live, nor after!” said Pender 
Fleming, in a low voice. “She has given me her 
solemn promise. Ah, my prophetic soul! I felt it 
would come to this. I felt it — and she shall keep 
that promise, not only so long as I live, but so 
long as she lives after me.” He licked his dry 
lips. 

But Beau Temple gave an exclamation of mingled 
anger and disgust. 

“ Oh, rubbish !” said he. “ Pender, you’re behaving 
like a fool. I’m ashamed of you. You’re behaving 
like a stubborn child who wants to beat everybody 
in sight because it has been hurt. Come! Be as 
human as you can. You love the girl, in your 
fashion, I take it ? Well, you’ve never yet given any 
very good proof of that. Give it now.” 

243 


17 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Never in this world !” said Pender Fleming. 
“Never, under any conceivable circumstances !” 

“Be careful, Pender !” cried the younger man. 
“Think what you say! Remember what happened 
long ago. You’re in a fair way to make it happen 
again, you know.” 

“I have her solemn promise!” 

“Aye,” said Beau Temple. “Aye, that you have. 
And if you play Shylock with her, she’ll keep it as 
long as she can. Promises, friend, are of the con- 
scious will. So long as that holds they are held, and 
hearts may break to keep them. But how about 
afterward ? Hearts break, and then the strength 
goes — the strength to resist — ” He was so very 
much in earnest that he did not realize how he was 
quoting word upon word from Beatrix Faring. 
“Little by little it goes — trickling away — and then 
comes a sort of blind madness — a fury of despair — 
and then the end. Who of us knows the end of his 
strength to resist ? Another woman, Pender, as 
pure and good and sweet a woman as ever breathed 
God’s air, made a promise once — to love, honor, and 
obey. But there came something so far beyond her 
imagination, so far beyond her strength to resist, 
that she was like a wind-blown straw — a little boat in 
a storm. What could her easy promises do for her 
then ?” 

Pender Fleming suddenly hid his face, and 
strange, little, shivering, moaning voices came from 
behind the strained fingers. 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Let me be!” he cried. “Let me be, for God’s 
sake!” 

“I think,” said Beau Temple, quaintly, “that it is 
for God’s sake I dare not let you be. For God’s and 
Vittoria’s. Yes, and for yours as well. . . . Do you 
love the child ?” 

The elder man dropped his hands from his con- 
torted face, and Beau Temple averted his eyes. It 
seemed to him a sort of spiritual nakedness he looked 
upon — something indecent, obscene. 

“Yes, yes!” he said, with a sort of hurried awk- 
wardness. 

“To be sure. Of course you love her. Well, 
prove it! Now’s the time.” 

“What you ask of me is impossible — impossible,” 
said Pender Fleming. He spoke in a choked whis- 
per, breathing hard. But again the younger man 
cried out upon him in anger. 

“This is incredible! It is inhuman. Man, you 
don’t know what you’re saying. You rave.” Abrupt- 
ly he bent forward to look close into the other’s white 
face, and so stared upon him while one might have 
counted ten. In the end he recoiled, tight-lipped. 
He said: 

“This is beyond my uttermost conception of 
human vileness. A man so poisoned in soul that he 
will wreck his only child’s life to pay a debt of hatred ! 
It is beyond belief.” 

And after a silent space, he said: 

“Vengeance is God’s, Pender. Not yours.” 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


He came forward a step toward the great writing- 
table and the man who sat, still as death, behind it. 
And, when he spoke, his voice was very grave. 

“We two,” said he, “have known each other for a 
good many years. I have come here to sit with you 
and to walk and talk with you as no other human 
soul has done through two decades. You have 
seemed glad of my friendship. It has been your one 
remaining link with the outside world. But I warn 
you, Pender, that unless you give over this hideous 
and brutal madness of yours — give it over this day 
and hour — set that innocent child free of her rash 
promise — I warn you, that unless you do this, I will 
go from out your house, and, as God is above us, 
I will never again set foot in it while you live.” 

As little rippling shadows shiver across still water 
before a squall of wind, so shadows or something like 
them fled across Pender Fleming’s still face, and, it 
may be, left it a little grayer — the lines a little deeper 
and more haggard. But he did not speak. Even 
then he did not speak. 

“Stand up!” cried Beaumont Temple, in a great 
voice. He began to tremble a little with wrath — the 
righteous wrath of a good man moved beyond bearing. 

“Stand up and speak like a man,” said he, “if 
there is any manliness left in you!” He pointed a 
rigid and accusing finger. 

“I say, if there is any manliness left in you, but 
I almost believe there is none. You have posed and 
shammed and pretended here for twenty years — a 
246 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


mock monument of deathless grief — the caricature of 
a sorrowful man! I have watched you, Pender, 
from first to last, and I have seen you strutting before 
your mental mirror, preening your black feathers, 
schooling your face into a mask of melancholy, de- 
lighting in the perfection with which you played 
your miserable role. A great blow smote you twenty 
years ago — a blow to stagger any man; but not to 
crush him for life, not to make him forget that he 
had still a life to live, and other lives that hung upon 
his. Another man, a real man, would have bowed 
his head to the storm, and, when the bitterest of his 
grief was over, when time had covered his wounds 
a little, would have raised it again and looked his 
responsibilities in the face, set his shoulder again to 
the good and wholesome tasks God had allotted him. 
. . . What have you done ? You have filled your 
paltry soul with one contemptible thought — hatred. 
You have set in the midst of your mental horizon one 
contemptible object — vengeance. 

“How have you behaved to that child, that blame- 
less child who was left in your hands — the most 
solemn and exacting responsibility that can be laid 
upon a human soul ? What have you done for her ? 
Nothing, I say! Absolutely nothing! Not only 
have you never stirred your hand in her cause, but 
you have immured her here, buried her, to satisfy 
your incredibly gigantic selfishness. I am ashamed 
to think that I have taken your hand — eaten your 
bread. I am humiliated in my own eyes.” 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


He went a little way toward the door of the room, 
but halted there, looking back. Pender Fleming’s 
gross body was shaken grotesquely by silent weeping 
— a dreadful sight — and tears ran down his white 
face and dripped from the pendent jowls. He wept 
openly and unashamed, made no effort even to wipe 
his eyes. But when the other man turned with that 
abrupt movement and went toward the door, he gave 
a sudden hoarse cry, and stretched out his hands. 
He seemed unable to rise. He called upon Beau 
Temple by name, desperately, but the voice went 
little beyond a whisper. He said; 

“Wait! wait! For God’s sake, Beau, don’t turn 
away from me now! I can’t — I have no one! No 
one! You don’t understand! All these years — 
haunted! I’ve been haunted, devil-ridden! I can’t 
— all in a moment! Give me time! I must think! 
You don’t know how incredibly bitter — 

“His son!” the man cried. The words wrenched 
themselves out of a sheer physical agony. “Creighton 
Blake’s son! I can’t, Beau! Don’t you see I can’t? 
First Bianca — then the child! It would kill me!” 
He seemed to see a further movement of the man 
across the room, for he gave another cry and struggled 
half out of his chair. 

“Give me time! A little time! Don’t turn away 
from me, Beau! Don’t desert me! I love the child! 
She’s all I have! I’ll — try! I’ll try! Only give me 
time to think!” 

Temple watched him coldly. He was still very 
248 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


angry and he had small pity upon the man, but he 
had the sense to see that Pender was on the verge of 
collapse — that no more could be got out of him for 
the time being. 

“When you are ready to give Vittoria back her 
promise,” said he, “you can send for me and I will 
come. Until that time I shall not again set foot in 
your house.” He seemed to be about to say more, 
but after a moment shook his head and turned away. 
So the door closed, and Pender Fleming was left 
alone — his only friend gone from him in anger. 


XIX 


LE PHILOSOPHE 

T EMPLE saw Vittoria for no more than a few 
brief moments when he came out from that 
stormy interview with her father. He had not meant 
to see her at all. He had meant to slip away un- 
noticed, but as he was mounting his horse under the 
porte cochere at the side of the house, she came up 
from the gardens and saw him. So he sent away the 
stable-boy and waited. 

Vittoria hastened to where he was, and stood by the 
horse, laying a hand on the bridle. She looked up 
at Temple, and saw that his face was flushed and 
stern, with glittering eyes. The man was still 
thoroughly angry, with a depth of anger which seldom 
entered his quiet life, and so, when it came, was slow 
to depart. 

“What has happened, Beau ?” she asked, gazing 
up at him anxiously. “Eve never before seen you 
look like that. What is it ?” He gave her a wry smile. 

“Oh, I’ve been having it out with Pender. We 
spoke some rather frank words — at least, I did.” 

“Having it out with him ?” She wondered. And 
Temple said: 


250 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“About you and Richard Blake and — your promise. 
Pender’s a Shylock. It was hard for me to keep my 
hands off him.” 

She said, “Oh!” in a very low voice, and bent her 
head, so that her face was hidden from the man who 
sat above her. After a moment she shook her head. 

“There’s no one like you, Beau,” said she. “No 
one in this world. No one! But it’s no good, you 
know. I promised faithfully. And even if — well, 
if I should ever be sorry I did it — want my promise 
back — he’d never give it me. Did you think he 
would? Oh, you don’t know him! He’d die first. 
He’d — rather see me dead than — than that. He 
told me so once, and he meant it. 

“Ah, Beau!” she cried, looking up to him again — 
and there were tears upon her beautiful face — “to 
think of you doing this for me! Is there no selfish- 
ness in you at all, Beau! Are you all unselfish — 
always ?” 

The man gave a brief, awkward laugh. 

“You ought to know that I’m not. Hasn’t all 
this wretched business — or all the latter part of it — 
come from my blind selfishness ? Of course it has. 
If I hadn’t begged you to be so insane as to marry 
me you’d have been free when Blake came here. 
You’d never have made that idiotic promise. You’d 
— Oh, I’ve been altogether at fault — a bungling, 
meddlesome ass! See what has come of it! Do you 
wonder I want to do what I can to patch it up ? 
Don’t talk rubbish about unselfishness. It’s remorse. 

251 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Well, Pender and I have had a most ruffianly 
time in yonder, and I lost my temper and slanged 
him like a bargee, and Heaven knows what it will 
end in! I think I frightened him a bit, anyhow — 
and that’s wholesome. I told him I’d never set foot 
in his house again until he gave you back your 
promise.” 

“Beau! Beau!” cried the girl. “You didn’t? 
You never told him that!” 

“Yes, I did, too!” said the man, with some retro- 
spective relish. “And I meant it. If Pender has 
become the sort of man who will do so inhumanly 
wicked a thing as to hold you to that promise out of 
sheer hatred and revenge — if he’s that sort of a man, 
I don’t care to have anything more to do with him. 
I’m done with him forever.” 

Vittoria began to cry. But, then, she could cry 
and be beautiful still — and few women can achieve 
that. 

“Then I’m to lose you altogether, Beau? I’m 
to see no more of you ? I think I wish I were dead.” 

“Good Lord, child!” he exclaimed. “Good Lord, 
no! What an idea! Nothing of the sort. Of course 
we’re to go on as before. You’ll take notice that I 
said I’d never again set foot in Pender’s house. I 
said nothing about his garden, and I said nothing 
about your setting your feet in my house. I should 
think not!” His face turned grave. 

“I can’t tell how this thing will turn out. I 
frightened him. I stirred him a little. That I’m 
252 


BIANCA'S DAUGHTER 


sure of. But who knows Pender Fleming ? Not I. 
I think the man is almost insane — a monomaniac — 
obsessed by everlasting hatred and thirst for ven- 
geance. He has lost all sense of proportion. His 
grief and his resentment and his hatred loom so large 
before him, through coddling them all these years, 
that everything else looks small and unimportant — 
even you— even your happiness. We must use 
every effort we can to break him down now, but if he 
sticks it out we must find some way of getting you 
free of his clutches later on. You’re of age, and 
you have your mother’s little fortune. There’s no 
reason why you should continue to be immured with 
a madman. There are the Farings, there’s your 
cousin Catharine Dudley — plenty more. You can 
at least live a human life, and let Pender growl to 
himself in his cave. As for the promise — well. I’m 
not so sure that promises extorted in excitement and 
in ignorance of all the facts need be binding. When 
you made that one you didn’t know what you know 
now. You thought the right in that old matter was 
all on your father’s side. I don’t think a promise 
made under such conditions is worth much. Eh ?” 

Vittoria shook her head. 

“ A promise is a promise, Beau. I gave my word 
very solemnly. I shall never break it. It’s infinitely 
good and sweet of you to try to make it easy for me — 
help my conscience out, but — no, I couldn’t break 
a solemn promise made to my own father. If I 
didn’t know all the circumstances, at least I knew 
253 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


perfectly well what I was promising. I’ll never 
break it.” 

“No,” said Beau Temple, with a little sigh. He 
looked down at her, shaking his head, and smiled. 

“I suppose you won’t,” said he. “There’s a bit 
of Pender in you, after all — stern stuff. Italian 
sunshine and New England granite make an odd 
combination, don’t they ? They must have a terrible 
time together. Thank God, the granite’s deep down 
out of sight, anyhow!” He gathered up the reins. 

“I must be getting back to my hill. For a quiet 
and peace-loving old soul I seem to have had rather 
a war-like day.” He held down one hand, and the 
girl took it in both hers, and laid her cheek against it. 

“Don’t you go mourning and blubbering, now!” 
said he. “We shall find a way out of all this, some- 
how. I pledge my word.” He leaned abruptly 
from his saddle and kissed her on the nearest avail- 
able point, which chanced to be a very small pink 
ear. Then he clucked to the patient beast and rode 
away. And the girl threw kisses after him. 

Down beyond the gates of Standish, with his face 
turned homeward, he pulled up to a walk and rode 
slowly between the green hedge-rows, drooping a 
little in the saddle, his hands clasped before him, 
his head bent. He became aware that he was 
prodigiously tired — weary to the point of exhaustion. 
It was the truth that he had spoken to Vittoria. 
For so quiet and peace-loving a soul the day had been 
254 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


a very war-like one to him, had told upon him 
heavily. He was not used to such days. 

Oddly, however, and perhaps fortunately, the 
sequence of the day’s events had spared him some- 
what, for the flame and ensuing heat of his anger 
toward Pender Fleming masked, for the time, that 
sense of loss irreparable which later on he would 
have to envisage and accustom himself to. He was 
aware of that, also, as he rode slowly homeward, 
with the warmth of the sun upon him — nodded his 
head over it, was glad of it. It was something gain- 
ed, since the first hours of grief or loss are bitterest. 
In some fashion battle must be renewed with the 
master of Standish; somehow Pender must be over- 
thrown, the girl set free to follow where her heart led. 
There lay interest and occupation for some time to 
come, with little opportunity for repining. He saw 
himself, with a brief grin, for something like a general 
after a defeat — recasting his losses, reviewing what 
was left to him, looking already to the future and what 
might be in store. And once, after a space of this, 
the man smote his hands together, to the nervous un- 
doing of the gray nag, and said aloud, very earnestly: 

“She shall have her life! By God, she shall have 
her life, Pender or no Pender!” By which it is 
made plain that Temple’s own woes were seldom 
first with him. 

Arrived at Lone Tree Hill, he dismounted, and 
entered the screened porch at the side of the house. 
The blind man De Coucy was there, with a blind 
255 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


man’s book of raised print upon his knees. He 
looked up with a smile, exclaiming: 

“C’est toi, mon vieux?” Temple said: 

“Oui,” and let himself heavily down into a chair 
that creaked protest under him. He drew a sigh 
and took his head into his hands. His voice sounded 
flat and dry. 

“Dieu, comme je suis fatigue! — Au bout de mes 
forces!” 

The Frenchman did not answer, but seemed to 
wait, and, after a pause, Temple said: 

“My old friend, I have in this one day cemented a 
friendship, given up a hope which I have cherished 
very dearly for a long time, and quarrelled, perhaps 
beyond repair, with a comrade. It has been an 
eventful day for me.” 

“Mon tres cher ami,” said M. de Coucy, “let us 
hope that the friendship gained may more than 
compensate for that lost, and that the hope aban- 
doned, pour le bon motif, may bestow blessings that 
will make you glad to the end of your days!” 

The other man looked up at him with a pallid 
curiosity, wondering how much he knew, and after a 
moment the Frenchman went on: 

“I have asked no questions, and I ask none now. 
You have told me little, but I know that you have 
been sad. I know that another, also, has been sad. 
We of the darkened world have much leisure — 
reflect, put two with two, and make four. I think 
you will be glad of this sacrifice. One of the pleas- 
256 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


antest things I know of in this world is the fact that 
sacrifice brings, in almost every instance, its own 
reward; for the keenness of desire must, of necessity, 
dull with time — become no more than a memory, 
but the good done by the sacrifice remains.” 

“If it is truly a good,” said Beau Temple. “One 
might make mistakes.” 

“Are you in doubt?” 

“No! No, I cannot doubt. It was the only thing 
to do. . . . But I shall be lonely, Raoul. I shall be 
very lonely.” 

“You have your work,” said the Frenchman. 
“What would have become of that in — the other 
event ? I have thought about that, and wondered 
and grieved. You are an artist. You have obliga- 
tions — serious ones. I think one has hardly the 
right to shirk them. It is old, and trite — tout ce 
qu’il-y-a du plus banal — the doctrine that the good 
artist must make mistress and wife, children, family, 
friends of his art, but I am afraid it is true. To 
create, one must suffer. The well-fed canary does 
not sing, nor the fat hound hunt. That is a reductio 
ad absurdum, but it also is true, like most trite 
sayings. And, besides — ” 

“Well ?” 

“You have certain memories, mon vieux, to go 
through life with.” 

Beau Temple drew a sharp breath. 

“Yes,” said he, in a whisper. “Ah yes! . . . They 
will carry me through this life, I think.” 

257 


XX 


NIGHT IN THE WALLED GARDEN — LOVE SPREADS 
HIS SAILS 

V ITTORIA passed the remainder of that after- 
noon in her walled garden alone with Mr. 
Hennessy. She did not read the magazines that 
she had brought out for the purpose, nor devour the 
little box of Russian chocolates, but sat quite still 
on one of the benches, her hands clasped in her lap, 
her eyes fixed, not as eyes that see, upon the opposite 
wall. From time to time Mr. Hennessy made timid 
overtures to her — a hesitant paw, a cold, damp nose 
upstretched toward the still hands — but his mistress 
paid him no attention whatever, and after a long 
while he curled up at her feet as philosophically as 
is possible for an Irishman, and dreamed that he was 
chasing all the cats in the world, and that, despite 
their overwhelming numbers, they fled from him in 
utter consternation, and he caught them one by one 
and slew them amid sanguinary rivers — a very 
Waterloo — of cats. He quivered with joy as he slept, 
and once or twice emitted low barks of proud de- 
fiance, and his legs twitched as he thought he ran, 
258 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


but Vittoria neither saw nor heard. Her eyes and 
her mind were far away. 

She wished very much that she might see Beatrix 
Faring, and she would have proposed herself for 
dinner at Cedar Hill, but Richard Blake was there, 
and it could not be done. So at last, when the sun 
was low and it was near dinner-time, she rose, a little 
stiff from long sitting in one position, and went up 
to the house to dress. 

She expected to dine alone, because she was quite 
sure that her father, after that violent scene with 
Beau Temple, would remain in his own part of the 
house, but, very much to her surprise, he appeared 
at the table. He looked wretchedly ill, even whiter 
than usual, and, if it can be said of a man so gross in 
figure, haggard and thin. There were hollows be- 
side his temples, and the skin of his face seemed to 
hang loosely upon the bones, so that there were new 
vertical folds and creases. It was rather horrible. 
Vittoria exclaimed over his altered appearance, and, 
womanlike, wanted to dose him with something, 
but the man checked her with his usual impatience, 
insisting that he was as well as he had ever been, 
and she dared say no more. 

They had a curious hour together. Pender Flem- 
ing seemed to have come out of his retreat for a 
definite purpose. It was as if he were attempting, 
at the expense of great labor, to ingratiate himself 
with his daughter — make himself agreeable to her — 
speak her language. He talked of her season in 
is 259 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


New York, hinted at a repetition of the visit in the 
following year, asked questions as to the changes in 
town since his last visit, years gone by. He spoke 
warmly of Catharine Dudley and of the Farings, and 
inquired about Aunt Arabella Crowley, whom he 
had once known; but said never a word of Beau 
Temple nor of Richard Blake, nor of anything which 
could reasonably bring up their names. 

It was a remarkable effort, far the most elaborate 
that Pender had ever made, and Vittoria received 
it with as good a grace as she could muster, though 
she was astonished and puzzled almost beyond 
speech. She could not at all imagine what reason 
the man had for this new trend — what purpose he 
had in view — since, of course, there must be a purpose 
of some kind. And once or twice she made a feeble 
opening for explanations if he chose to make any, 
but her father either saw no openings, or, seeing, re- 
fused to be led into them. He remained, as ever, 
enigmatic — a problem beyond solving, and, as it 
were, she gave him up. She was a little touched by 
his effort, but she was more than a little suspicious 
of it. It came too late, by several years, to bear 
with it any conviction of honesty. 

After dinner, when, to her relief, she was left 
alone, she played for a while at the piano — Chopin 
and some little German songs, and the Grieg Peer 
Gynt music, after that began to read M. Anatole 
France’s Ulle des Pinguins , which had come in the 
post the day before, and about eleven o’clock went 
260 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

up-stairs. She was not in the least sleepy, but 
mechanically got through the usual preparations for 
the night and went to bed, because there seemed 
to be nothing else to do. 

Once there, she lay wide-eyed, fronting the dark — 
and sleep would have none of her. Her mind was a 
battle-ground whereupon a vast relief and a sort of 
shamed and secret joy fought with deep depression. 
For the hour depression seemed to have the better 
of it — weighed darkly, heavily upon her. Her 
father’s strange bearing had filled her with vague 
dread, but there was more than that. There was 
Beau Temple. 

She gave a little sob in the dark. It was very bit- 
ter to her to have failed Beau after all those years of 
care and tenderness and affection. It hurt her 
sorely. And it was bitter also to think how she had 
let him go, almost without a word. Looking back 
upon the afternoon, it seemed to her that she had 
hardly spoken at all after that moment of shock and 
terror, in which the Beau she had known and loved 
so well had all at once become a stranger to her. 
She had been too stunned for words — excuses — 
apologies. She had let him go, and the man, faithful 
even through his dark hour, had gone to plead for 
her — fight her battles — win for her a happiness he 
could never share. Her heart bled for him. She 
sorrowed for his sorrow, but she knew that there 
could be no going back. The thing which had come 
between them, thrusting them apart, stood there yet, 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and she shivered a little to think of it. Beau could 
never again be quite the same to her. She could 
never quite forget. 

Rather oddly her mind went back to that time — 
only a few days before, but it seemed months to her — 
when she had spent a week deliberating over his 
proposal and looking forward to a probable marriage 
with him. She almost laughed, but not for mirth, 
as she remembered with what dispassionate calm she 
had contemplated the change in their relations, how 
she had felt sure that from much reading of books 
and a little reflection over them she was prepared 
for all that might be in store. The change from 
fatherly or brotherly friend to lover had seemed 
to her then a very simple thing — tenderness grown 
more tender, perhaps — intimacy more intimate, but 
unaltered in kind. 

Then the terrible moment, and the fear, and the 
repulsion! 

She began to tremble a little with fear of Love. 
If Love came bearing that dreadful face, could she 
ever meet him with gladness — open arms ? Must 
there not always rise in her the panic of terror, the 
instinct to struggle and escape ? 

She tried to imagine that Love had come in the per- 
son not of Beau Temple, but of another. And she 
remembered that he had come once, and her heart 
began to beat very fast indeed, and she felt that her 
face was flushing hot in the darkness. 

If Love should come again ! 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


She gave a little cry, and suddenly clasped her 
hands together over her eyes, as if to shut out the 
sight of something. And after a while she said 
aloud : 

“ Never! Never! Never!” For she knew in 
whose person Love must come to her, if he ever came, 
and she had forsworn that Love very solemnly. She 
had given her solemn promise, and she would never 
break that. Beau Temple had been right. There 
was a bit of Pender in her — New England granite, 
that the sun of Italy might warm but could not melt. 

Vittoria lay still in her bed for a while longer, 
her eyes very wide open, seeing, no one may say what; 
but at last sat up, found her fleece-lined mules by 
groping for them at the bedside, and so rose to her 
feet. At first she thought she would make a light, 
but gave that over and began to move about the room 
in the darkness, which was not gloomy, for the 
windows were open, so that she could see the vague 
shapes of the chairs and tables round her. She 
stood for an instant with her hands upon the marble 
mantel, and looked up to where her beautiful mother 
sat hidden in the night — hidden, but as sleepless as 
Vittoria herself, leaning forward, with one lovely 
arm laid along the back of the seat, the other across 
her knees, her eyes straining through the darkness 
to meet her daughter’s eyes, her lips parted in speech. 
Vittoria knew what the speech was. She heard it 
as if it had been a real and physical voice — “When 
Love calls, answer and go!” 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


The girl shook her head a little sadly, but without 
bitterness. 

“If only I might, my dearest dear!” said she. 
“But I cannot go.” 

She turned away across the room to one of the 
open windows. The cool breath of the night came 
in there, and it was sweet and grateful to her. She 
fetched a cushion and set it upon the floor of the 
tiny balcony without the window. And she knelt 
down and laid her arms upon the low balcony-rail 
before her, and lifted her hot face to the night’s 
fresh kiss. 

There was a waning moon to the west, but now 
and then a cloud drifted slowly across its face and 
the silver light fled from the fields and trees beneath. 
There were stars in millions, cold and blue, and, 
lower, among the tree-tops very far away, a few 
yellow pin-points of light from the village. The 
barely perceptible breeze came from that direction, 
and, as the girl knelt upon her balcony, there reached 
her ears a faint sound of chimes — the very ghost 
of a sound — and afterward a single clear bell. One 
o’clock. 

Beneath her the gardens slept dark and still, but 
that barely perceptible breeze bore up the scent of 
roses and of all the green growing things. She felt 
a sudden poignant desire to be down there close to 
the earth, where everything was cool and fresh and 
odorous, where the dew lay on the close-clipped turf, 
and the roses hung pallid and strange in the moonlight. 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


She knew that there would be no one to see her, for 
the household was long since abed and asleep, and 
even the dogs were in their kennels. She gave a 
little laugh in the dark, and rose at once and turned 
back into the room. 

She put on a thin dressing-gown, a sort of kimono, 
and went noiselessly out and down to a certain door 
at the side of the house which she knew was merely 
bolted at night, not locked with a key. Then in a 
moment more she was in the open, across the drive 
which encircled the house, and moving down the 
gravel path through the gardens. She came to the 
walled enclosure which was her very own, and which 
she loved, and her roses leaned to her out of the 
gloom at either side. The fountain gurgled and 
dripped in the midst of the place, and stars swam 
reflected in the oblong pool. At either side two 
broad beech-trees threw a circle of inky darkness, 
and their leaves stirred over it, gray in the moonlight. 
A little drowsy bird cheeped once from somewhere 
out of sight, and another answered it more drowsily 
still and rustled the leaves where it was. 

Vittoria put off the bedroom-shoes, and stood with 
her naked feet upon the wet turf. A tingling thrill of 
coolness and life ran up through her from feet to 
head, and it seemed to work a sort of magic upon 
her. It seemed to her that she became a part of 
that sweet and fragrant garden and of the moonlit 
night — an enchanted being in a world of make- 
belief. It seemed to her that a horn should wind 
265 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


far away in the wood, and that her fairy-prince lover 
should ride toward her into the moonlight, and leap 
from his horse and come and kneel at her feet. She 
looked back toward the iron gate in the wall, and 
remembered how Richard Blake had come in through 
it and gone out by it once more. She wondered if 
the little gate would ever again swing open to his 
hand, and her heart gave a sudden strange, fierce 
throb of longing, and tears stung in her eyes. 

At first she thought that the tears and the moon- 
light and her foolish fancies had conspired together 
to deceive her, and she began a little nervous laugh 
and shook her head, but in the end she caught her 
two hands up over her mouth to check the scream 
which rose there, and stood motionless, staring, 
while the gate in the wall stirred, as she had tried to 
imagine, and opened noiselessly and closed again 
behind some one who had entered. 

The man turned, his face in the moonlight, and, 
when he looked before him, raised one arm over his 
eyes. But after a moment he came forward very 
slowly, step by step, and Vittoria heard the breath 
hiss between his teeth and knew that he thought her 
a phantom. He put out one hand, with an odd, stiff 
gesture, and touched her arm, but at that human 
touch he fell back again with a sound that was like 
a sob, and, for a moment, covered his face, shaking 
all over. When at last he could speak, he said, 
whispering: 

“ I meant — you not to know. I meant just to come 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and— sit for a little while in your garden. I wanted 
to see the house where you were sleeping. Only 
that. I didn’t mean you to know. I swear I didn’t 
mean you to know! I should have gone away 
presently.” 

She said: 

Yes, I know. I believe you. It’s not your 
fault.” She found that her breath was coming in 
strange, silent gasps, as if the air had suddenly 
grown very thin. 

“Only,” she said, “you must go away, please. 
You shouldn’t have come — or, I’ll go back into the 
house.” 

She turned unsteadily, but the man was before 
her, his arms outstretched wide. He said: 

“No! No! Not yet. A little moment first. 
Just a little moment! Since by some miracle we are 
here together, stay with me a moment more. It can 
do no harm.” 

Enchantment was all round and about her. She 
breathed it into her lungs. The moonlight, the 
soft air, the breath of roses — they were a spell upon 
her: the sight of the man before her and the sound 
of his hushed voice a part of the spell. Almost she 
became convinced that she was moving in a dream — 
that nothing mattered. # She found herself passive — 
without the will or the power to move. 

“I must go back into the house,” she said, but she 
did not go. She was conscious of an odd sense of 
great bodily weakness. 

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“Vittoria,” said Richard Blake, “I talked with 
Beaumont Temple to-day.” And she nodded. 

“Yes, I know. I did, too. He told me.” 

“He has set you free.” 

“Yes,” she said, whispering. 

“Vittoria,” said he, “I love you. I can tell you so 
now — openly — without shame or dishonor. I love 
you.” 

Vittoria gave a little sob. And again she said, 
whispering: 

“I know. I know. Oh!” she said, “I’m glad. 
I’m so glad ! It is very sweet to me to know that you 
love me. I wanted you to say it. Please say it 
again. It will help me so — to go on with. It will 
make my life so beautiful.” 

She saw the man’s quick frown in the moonlight. 

“What do you mean,” he demanded, “by my love 
‘helping you — to go on with’ ? What do you mean 
by that ?” 

She uttered a little cry. 

“Didn’t Beau Temple tell you about the promise 
I made to my father ?” 

“Oh yes!” said Richard Blake. “He told me 
about that. Do you expect me to take it seriously ? 
Do you think I’m going to lose you forever because 
you made an absurd promise when you didn’t even 
know the facts of the case ?” 

“A promise is a promise,” said she, soberly. “If 
you knew me better, you’d know that I couldn’t even 
think of breaking it.” He came closer to her, until 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


he was within arm’s-length, gazed anxiously into her 
face, that was white and very beautiful in the moon- 
light- 

“Do you love me — even a little, Vittoria ?” 

“ I have never loved anyone else,” she said, bravely, 
and did not take her eyes from his. “I never shall. 
I think I have loved you from the beginning, and I 
know I shall love you to the end, but I can never marry 
you. No! Wait! Listen to me! It is more than 
just the fact of a promise that comes between us. 
It’s — obedience — duty — good faith. You know how 
my father feels. And it is not altogether preposter- 
ous. They — wronged him deeply, and he has never 
got over it. He never will. I am all he has in the 
world. If I should leave him and marry you I am 
almost sure that it would kill him. I should have 
killed my father to gain my own happiness. You 
cannot conceive how deeply he feels about it all. 
Beau Temple talked with him — tried to win him over 
— even quarrelled with him beyond repair, I am 
afraid. But I know that it came to nothing. My 
father has lost his best — almost his only — friend 
rather than give way. He cannot give way. He has 
forgotten how.” 

The man made a strong effort at self-control, and 
for the moment achieved it. He put his hands be- 
hind him. 

“Vittoria,” said he, “what do you think it is that 
has brought us two together — your mother’s daughter 
and my father’s son ?” 


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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“I suppose it must be Fate,” she said — “whatever 
that is.” 

“Then Fate,” said Richard Blake, “will go on 
working, and your father will have to give way before 
it. He cannot fight long against Fate. No one can. 
Meanwhile — 

“Ah!” he cried, “it is unbearable. I will not give 
you up! I cannot. Do you think I will go on 
through my life loving you, knowing that you love 
me back, and let it end there ? It’s impossible, I tell 
you. Has not that — that — has not your father had 
enough sacrificed to him already ? Was not your 
mother’s life until near the end — is not your own 
life, shut up here away from the world — are not they 
enough ? Is this man a god, that lives upon lives 
should be sacrificed to him ? Vittoria, it’s too much. 
We’re young, you and I. The best of our lives is 
before us. Your father is an old man. He had his 
chance in life, and lost it through his own acts. Don’t 
let him play Moloch to you and to me! He has 
already had more than he deserves. Don’t let a 
foolish promise — a half - dozen words spoken in 
excitement — wreck us forever. It’s not fair. It’s 
not just.” 

Vittoria covered her face. 

“Oh, Richard, Richard, don’t tempt me! You 
make it seem so easy, so right, to break my word. 
But I know it isn’t right. We can’t do that. They 
robbed him, my mother and your father. Whatever 
they suffered, whatever my poor mother had to 
270 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


endure — and I shall never forgive my father for it — 
still they ruined his life. Glad as I am that they 
went away and had their little year of happiness, still 
I know that they wrecked him utterly. We’re 
hostages of their sin, Richard. We must suffer for 
what they did. The sins of the fathers! We suffer 
for them. Ah, my dear, don’t tempt me. Don’t 
make it harder for me than it is. Help me to do 
what I must do!” 

He looked upon her with haggard and with bitter 
eyes, yet with pride in her very inflexibility. She 
was stronger than he, and he loved her for it. He 
drew a great sigh. 

“I can’t fail you,” he said, “when you plead with 
me. You shame me. I’ll say no more. There will 
come times when living without you will be un- 
bearable, and I shall make insane plans for storming 
Standish and carrying you off, whether you want to 
go or not. There will come times like that.” He 
gazed at her reflectively. 

“And, you know,” said he, “it isn’t improbable 
that one day I shall do it. I’m not a very civilized 
person. One day it will be plain to me that you and 
I are leading empty and ruined lives just for a 
scruple — a word — a point of fantastic honor. Then 
I shall do something, I warn you. I can endure a 
good deal on my own account, but I don’t know 
yet how much I can endure on yours. If I should 
see you very unhappy — very wretched — living on, 
year after year, as a useless, wicked sacrifice to a mad- 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


man, I — well, I think I couldn’t stand that. We 
shall see.” 

The man’s brows were drawn into a frown, but it 
was not an angry frown. There was no passion in 
him just then. He really seemed to be looking for- 
ward with perfect seriousness to that not improbable 
day of which he spoke — to be wondering calmly 
about it, and his aspect lent the words an extraor- 
dinary air of reasonableness. Despite herself, Vit- 
toria thrilled to them. 

“ But I put my faith,” he went on, “in the Fate that 
has moved us already so far — wrought miracles in 
our behalf. Too many extraordinary things have 
happened to us to be mere chance. That we should 
ever have met at all was strange enough. All the 
rest is stranger still.” 

Vittoria put out her hands to him with a little 
laugh that was not of mirth but of tenderness. 

“Lovers’ talk, my dear!” said she. “Lovers’ 
talk! Were there ever two people who loved each 
other and didn’t think unprecedented miracles had 
been worked for them — and for them alone ? . . . 
Well, maybe it’s so. Maybe miracles are worked for 
lovers. What better thing could they be for ? Let’s 
be grateful for our miracles!” Blake would have 
echoed her laughter, but the effort died in its be- 
ginning, and he stood silent, save for one very long, 
deep breath, looking at her where she stood in the 
moonlight before him. She must have been as- 
tonishingly beautiful in that hour, clad in her thin, 
272 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


straight-hanging garments, with her black hair in 
two great braids down before her shoulders, and her 
little naked feet white upon the turf. 

The hands she had stretched out to him he took in 
his, and he went down upon his knees before her, and 
held her hands to his face. He might have been, in 
very truth, that fairy-prince lover who had ridden 
to her through the night. Vittoria gave a little low 
cry and moved closer to where he knelt. She bent 
above him, and the man’s face lay against her breast. 
He both felt and heard her heart beat, and it beat fast 
and unsteadily. 

In every very great love there is the passion to 
fight for and shield and protect the object of that 
love, even against one’s own self, and this passion 
rose in the man and was for the time above all else. 
Vittoria was alone with him, and she trusted him, 
and she loved him very dearly, as only the entirely 
innocent can do, without question or reserve. He 
would have killed himself rather than prove un- 
worthy of her trust just then. 

She raised herself upright, not moving away, and 
the man laid his arms about her, so that she stood 
before him within their circle. She held his head 
with her two little hands. 

“Why don’t you speak to me ?” she said at last, 
in her half-whisper. 

“Is there anything to say?” he asked. “I can 
think of nothing, except that I love you so that I am 
blind and speechless, and there’s no strength in me. 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


I think no one ever loved any one so much be- 
fore” 

She stirred in his arms and laughed above him — a 
little laugh of divine tenderness. 

“ Lovers’ talk, my dearest!” she said again. 
“ Every lover in all the world has said that — and, I 
hope, meant it. Ah, but I love you to say it to me ! 
Say it again! Say it again!” 

“ I love you more than any one ever loved any one 
before!” he said, without a spark of humor — a little 
edge of fierceness in his tone. 

“ And I don’t care,” he said, “ whether or not other 
people have said the same words. They’re true for 
us only. The other people didn’t know.” 

Her hands lay upon his eyes, cool and very sweet. 

“It is so beautiful to be loved!” she said. “Ah, 
dearest, pity loveless men and women! They don’t 
know what sunshine is. They live in the dark. I 
pity them. Swear to me that you’ll love me always !” 

“A foolish, poor oath!” said he. “I could not live 
without loving you. It’s all my life, and I am in a 
panic when I think how short life is at best. It 
won’t hold even a little part of the love I have for 
you.” Her hands slipped from his eyes to his 
shoulders, and he lifted his face toward her, white in 
the moonlight and very grave. 

“ Never doubt how much I love you !” he said. “ It 
is all of me. It’s my blood — and ‘the blood is the 
life.’ I’m not speaking lovers’ speech. I’m speak- 
ing the sober, calm truth.” 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

He got slowly to his feet, and they stood for a little 
time silent, face to face, in the moonlit gloom. The 
scent of the roses was all about them — cool and sweet 
— mysteriously enchanting, as all odors are in the 
dark; the softest of all soft airs stirred against their 
faces; they heard the small splash of water from the 
goldfish-pool. The same thought came to them both 
in the same instant, and they met it with the helpless 
embarrassment of two children. Their first kiss 
hung between them, impalpable but imminent — 
gigantic in its importance, and a little terrifying. 

Suddenly Blake held out his arms. The girl drew a 
quick breath, and for a moment she stood still. Then 
she went into the arms he outstretched to her, and the 
arms closed round her strongly, and she lifted her 
beautiful face to his, and he kissed her lips. 

Afterward they clung together speechless and a 
little dazed, Vittoria’s face in the hollow of Blake’s 
shoulder, her hair against his cheek. And so they 
remained for a time which may have been minutes, 
but neither of them knew. 

It was the man who roused himself at last with a 
quick sigh. He became aware of how thinly covered 
Vittoria was, and that her shoulders and arms were 
chill through the silk of her dressing-gown. He 
said : 

“My dear love, you must go in. You will take 
cold here in the damp. I’ve been a brute to keep 
you so long. You must go in at once. She looked 
at him with absent eyes — a faint, fixed smile — and 
275 


19 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


he knew that she scarcely heard him, that words 
could hardly reach her through the spell in which she 
stood enwrapped. 

He took her head between his two hands, looking 
his last upon her, close through that fragrant gloom. 
He saw her eyes, very wide and dark, and her parted 
lips. It seemed to him that she had well-nigh stopped 
breathing. He said : 

“Go, now!” Vittoria nodded slowly. 

“Yes, I’ll go. rilgo” 

“And my love with you!” cried Richard Blake, 
beginning to tremble. “My love and my life with 
you.’ 

She smiled upon him divinely, but she stood still, 
and he saw that he must be the first to go. He turned 
away, but came back for an instant, saying; 

“There’s something you ought to know. My 
father, who started some weeks ago for the South 
Pacific, has come back — or will be back in a couple 
of days. He went only as far as Honolulu. A long 
telegram of mine reached him there, telling him 
about — my love for you, and about your father’s 
attitude. So he returned to San Francisco. He 
telegraphed twice — long messages. He is coming to 
see your father. Perhaps, among us all — I don’t 
know, but perhaps something can be managed.” 

The girl continued to look at him with that little 
fixed smile, and he wondered if she had heard any- 
thing of what he had said. He asked her: 

“Did you hear me ? About my father ?” 

276 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Once more she nodded. 

“Yes, I heard.” And so he turned away. 

At the gate in the wall he looked back once, and 
she was standing there still in the moonlight, tall 
and slender and very beautiful, her arms at her 
sides, the two great braids of black hair hanging 
down before her shoulders almost to her knees. 

But when he had been gone for some moments 
Vittoria drew a sigh, and seemed to waken from her 
spell of dazed enchantment. She found her bed- 
room-shoes upon the turf near by, thrust her feet into 
them, and went quietly up through the garden to the 
open door at the side of the house. There were no 
lights visible anywhere, the household was asleep 
and still No one had been aware of her movements. 

She went with dragging feet up to her own chamber 
and locked the door behind her. Then she cast her- 
self down upon the bed, hiding her face in the pillows, 
and lay there still till the morning light came in to 
rouse her. 


XXI 


THE MAN WHO LIVED IN HELL 

T HE next three days passed very happily for 
Vittoria, though they passed almost without 
event of any kind. She did not see Beau Temple 
again, for he had been summoned to town on a 
matter of business. He called her up by telephone 
to say that he was going, and that he would be back 
late on the third day. She rode once with Beatrix 
Faring, and kept that lady at Standish for luncheon; 
but Mrs. Faring became aware that the girl was not 
yet ready to talk about her broken engagement or 
about her relations with Richard Blake, and so held 
her own tongue, and the conversation was rather 
stiff and conscious and quite absurd, and she went 
home earlier than she had meant to do. 

So for three days Vittoria was left almost entirely 
alone, and was glad of it; for she had so much to re- 
flect upon and to think about. It has been said that 
she was happy, and that is quite true. She was 
happier than she had ever been before in her life, 
though she loved with all her heart and soul, with 
all her conscious being, a man whom she might never 
hope to marry. 


278 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Women in such matters as these are beyond the 
simple, forthright comprehension of man, and young 
girls are beyond the comprehension of anybody — 
most of all, themselves. Where a man loves he must 
take possession or he is miserably unhappy — as 
impatient and as obstreperous as a little child, and 
he will perform the most incredible feats of in- 
genuity, or perhaps of valor, to gain that possession. 
But a woman can love, and wait and wait and dream 
over her love, and imagine and pretend to herself, and 
be quite rapturous for months or even for years. 
It is a very interesting distinction, but it needs a 
modern German philosopher, and not the present 
simple-minded scribe, to examine it, and turn the 
microscope upon it, and write a big book with long 
words about its mysteries. The present scribe gives 
it up. 

Vittoria was entirely without hope of ever being 
able to marry Richard Blake, but that could not cloud 
her beautiful tranquillity. He loved her and she 
loved him, and that was enough. She had already 
reached, she said to herself, the utmost vertiginous 
height to which human love can attain. She was 
quite sure that there was nothing more. She had 
only to shut her eyes and the miracle returned upon 
her. She stood once more in the circle of her lover’s 
arms: they held her fast — so fast that she could not 
breathe, and she saw his eyes very close above her, 
and her heart stood still, and he kissed her, and the 
world about them ceased altogether to exist. 

279 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


It seemed to her that this was enough. In that 
one transforming kiss he had made her his own 
forever — “ sealed” her to him, as the expressive Mor- 
mon phrase has it. And she was quite sure that she 
could go through life very happily, very contentedly, 
with that knowledge and that memory to live upon. 
It would be wonderful, of course — incredibly sweet — 
if she could be with her lover always. She thought 
of that sometimes, as one might dream of the delights 
of a material heaven. Sometimes, too, she remember- 
ed what he had said about endurance coming to an 
end, and his storming Standish and carrying her off 
by main force. She thought of that and thrilled 
to it, and the well-remembered fierceness of the man’s 
tone waked something of its own kind in her, stirred 
for an instant mysterious, hitherto-unknown depths. 
But, for the most part, she thought only of how much 
more fortunate she was than anybody else in the 
world, since she had Blake’s faithful love. 

Yet despite this somewhat sublimated conception 
she was not altogether unpractical. Few women 
are. Something Beau Temple had said to her touch- 
ing the future remained in her mind, and she was 
quite determined to act upon it. If her father per- 
sisted, as she was certain he would do, in his present 
attitude, she could leave him for at least a large part 
of each year, and live in town. She would not break 
her promise to him, and she would not quarrel with 
him unless he should force the quarrel upon her, 
but she had not promised to remain buried in the 
280 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


country forever, and now that a way of escape had 
been pointed out, she meant to avail herself of it. 
The fortune that her mother had left to her was not 
large as fortunes go nowadays, but it was not small 
either. Its income would be enough and more 
than enough for her wants. The Farings, she knew, 
would be glad to have her for as long as she would 
stay with them, and so would Catharine Dudley, and 
so would two or three others. She could even travel 
to her heart’s content when any of these friends were 
travelling, and later on, as she grew older, she could 
find some nice elderly woman who was alone in the 
world and have a house of her own. 

So, as she looked down the years which were to 
come, she found that, after all, she might live, in most 
respects, a very normal sort of life, and might see a 
great deal of Richard Blake. It seemed to her, as 
she thought of it, very satisfying— very delightful, 
and the fact that she was leaving Richard Blake’s 
possibly different views out of her consideration never 
once occurred to her. 

As for Pender Fleming, during these three days no 
one ever knew what he felt or endured, in what man- 
ner he passed his gray or black hours. For that 
matter, no one knew how the man had passed the 
greater part of twenty years. Outwardly he sat in 
his book-lined study through the day and far into the 
night, or at intervals took long and solitary walks 
across the hills to the northward. But inwardly ? 

281 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


No one knew about that. Even Beaumont Temple, 
who had sat with the man, argued and disputed 
with him over matters logical or sometimes political, 
even he only guessed — only remembered and in- 
ferred and made his surmises. And yet, though no 
one could speak from knowledge, though even Temple 
could only look on and guess, it is certain that this 
man’s life was terrible, a haunted life full of bitter- 
ness so black that there are no words for it, full of 
wrecked and outraged love, of high pride trampled 
in the dust, of a still fury of hatred almost beyond 
measure. 

The word “hell” is overused, ragged, outworn. 
It has been tossed about so lightly that it no longer 
means much, but if for a moment it could be re- 
furbished and restored to something like its old 
vigor, it would be the one word to set opposite Pender 
Fleming’s life. One could say: “This man’s life 
was a hell,” meaning a place of spiritual torments 
more awful than can be described. 

It will be remembered that the man must always 
have been a violent and passionate man, altogether 
intolerant of the wills of those about him, intolerant 
of their likes and dislikes, of their hopes and fears 
and imaginings when these did not appeal to himself. 
He must have had the savage and primitive sense of 
possession which such men always have, and he must 
have had also their curious and poignant shame over 
giving voice to such love and tenderness as may be 
in their hearts. Such natures sometimes love very 
282 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


deeply, but it is an agony to them to express their 
love. 

All this is not meant by way of excuse for Pender 
Fleming. There is no possible excuse for the as- 
tounding selfishness of his life. It is more by way 
of explanation of that almost insane fury of his, of 
his couduct toward Richard Blake and toward his 
own daughter. 

And, after all, once the man’s character is under- 
stood and granted, this second blow of Fate, after 
twenty years, must be acknowledged to be a shrewd 
blow. He had, so to speak, dedicated his life to 
hatred. He had immured himself with almost the 
completeness of an anchorite, in his passionate 
desire to have done with that world which had wreck- 
ed him. Fancifully, we may see Pender Fleming 
going down the long, slow corridor of progress to the 
grave with two visions painted before him on the 
gloom — the picture of his one love and the likeness 
of the man who had robbed him. To keep the 
former picture fresh before him stands Vittoria, so 
amazingly like her mother. Suddenly, thereupon, 
to make the other vision to breathe and speak after 
twenty years, rises the son of Creighton Blake, and 
the second Bianca turns to him, as her mother to the 
man she loved, as naturally ?s a flower to the sun. 

It was a shrewd blow Fate dealt to Pender Fleming 
there — incredibly shrewd. Yes, it may safely be said 
that he dwelt in hell. 

He did not appear again at table after that first 

283 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


evening. (Can it have been that he realized his ill- 
success ?) And Vittoria had no more speech with 
him. But once or twice during the three days she 
saw him out-of-doors, walking alone upon the hills 
to the north of Standish. So it may be that his 
familiar room had become unbearable to him. Once 
he seems to have had a moment of weakness — was 
it actual surrender ? No one can say. He called 
up Lone Tree Hill by telephone and asked if Mr. 
Temple was at home. He did not ask to speak to 
him, merely asked if he was at home, and refused to 
give a name. But the servant with whom he spoke 
knew the voice, and said that his master was in New 
York. Whereupon, as the servant said afterward, 
“Mr. Fleming didn’t seem to be exactly disappoint- 
ed, sir. He seemed to be relieved, as you might 
say, sir.” 

This was on the second day, and later in the same 
afternoon, Pender, wandering solitary across the green 
uplands, fell in with an acquaintance — the French- 
man De Coucy. 


XXII 


THE FOUNDATIONS ARE SHAKEN — 

HE blind Frenchman was riding to take the air, 



I and he was attended, as usual, by a servant who 
rode close beside, and held his master’s horse upon a 
leading-rein. Pender Fleming paused at the top of 
the roadside-bank to let them pass. It would have 
been like him to stand there in silence, or even to 
retreat from view, but — he can hardly have been 
quite himself — he spoke, a simple “ Good-afternoon, 
and the blind man, who had a blind man’s unerring 
memory for voices, gave a direction to his servant, 
and the two reined in. 

There passed commonplace words of greeting, 
perfunctory praises of the weather, which had re- 
mained miraculously fine, and M. de Coucy apolo- 
gized for not having called in person at Standish 
after lunching there. (He had sent cards by Beau 
Temple the next day.) 

“The good Beau would not permit it,” he ex- 
plained. “He told me that you were always deep 
in your books, and hated to be torn from them. So 
I did not come.” 

“I am sorry,” Pender Fleming said. “I should 


285 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


have been glad of your call. Beau is apt to ex- 
aggerate. I hope you will take my word for his, and 
come when you find an idle afternoon.” In the 
ordinary course of things this geniality would have 
partaken of the miraculous, but both Beau Temple 
and Vittoria had noted with some surprise how 
Pender seemed drawn to the blind Frenchman on 
the one occasion of their meeting. Perhaps it was 
affliction calling to affliction. Pender never ex- 
plained it. 

“But this is an idle afternoon !” exclaimed De 
Coucy. “All my afternoons are idle. How if I 
take you at your very amiable word ? Are we far 
from your Standish ? How far ?” 

“Not above half a mile/’ said the other. “Will 
you come now? I shall be glad. Take the first 
turning to the left, just ahead here, and I will walk 
beside your horse.” 

The Frenchman wished to dismount, but Pender 
would not allow that, and so, politely wrangling, 
they turned up the near-by lane, and were very soon 
at Standish. 

There Pender Fleming, with a ready tact surpris- 
ing to see in him, led his guest in through the house, 
guiding his steps with an unobvious hand upon the 
blind man’s arm, quite as one might do with a man 
whose sight was perfect. He led him to that vast, 
dim study at the north, and pulled out a comfortable 
chair for him. De Coucy breathed the cool air of 
the place and nodded. 


286 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“You have books here,’’ said he. “Many books 
in leather bindings. This will be where you live 
and read. But,” he complained, “there is no 
sunshine. The sun never comes here. Why is 
that?” 

“I am a bird of dark plumage, monsieur,” said 
Pender Fleming. “A night-bird. The sun makes 
me blink. I — feel more at home in the shadows. 
Darkness and I are friends, I think — if, indeed, I 
have any friends. You are right, the sun never 
comes here. It is the north side of the house.” 

The Frenchman sat back in the comfortable chair 
and laid his elbows upon the arms of it, joining his 
finger-tips neatly together before him. He nodded 
his head. 

“Yes,” said he. “Yes, indeed. And yet — I am 
a sort of night-bird, too, I suppose. Shadows and I 
are bedfellows if not friends. But I love the sun- 
shine still. It warms me. I think that if I were 
never in the sun I should grow dark inside, and bitter 
and cold — like a cellar. I think we need the sun to 
keep us clean and sweet — as rooms do.” He smiled 
across at his host, and Pender Fleming was once more 
amazed, as he had been at their first meeting, to 
observe how perfectly normal the man’s appearance 
and bearing were. Most blind people, even when 
the eyes show no injury, betray their affliction by 
never moving the eyeballs or by the pose of their 
heads — thrown back a little in a listening attitude; 
but De Coucy’s eyes moved as if they saw, and he 
287 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


held his head as normal people do. There was not 
the slightest sign to be seen in him of his infirmity, 
except, perhaps, that he seemed to listen with more 
than usual care, as if his ears were doing double 
duty. Doubtless they were. 

The host proffered a box of cigars, saying: 

“You’ll find these endurable, I think. They are 
sent to me from Havana.” But the blind man shook 
his head, smiling. 

“Thank you,” said he, “we in the dark do not 
smoke. One cannot taste it, you know.” And the 
other flushed with chagrin over his mistake, and 
turned away, saying: 

“Of course, of course. I forgot.” 

But when he had lighted his own cigar and had 
sat down again he looked curiously across at his 
guest, and the man’s unembarrassed reference to 
his infirmity must have given Pender courage. For 
he said: 

“Tell me! We two have, I think, a good deal in 
common. We have both lost the best out of our 
lives, each in his different way, and we have had to go 
on living, maimed, crippled, set apart from mankind. 
Tell me! Do you ever long for death to come and 
end it?” 

“Oh yes!” said the Frenchman, readily. “Yes, 
indeed. I have wished for twenty-five years that I 
might die. I should be very happy indeed if I knew 
that I might die to-night — or to-morrow — even if it 
were to cost great pain. It is not so much my blind- 
288 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


ness (though that is a great deal) as the fact that 
those who made life sweet to me went on ahead very 
long ago, and when I die I hope to rejoin them. I 
am a good Christian, though not a Catholic.” 

“ There is the easy way out,” said Pender Fleming, 
and gave a little shiver. But the other man shook 
his head with great decision. 

“No! I shall never resort to that. In the first 
place, it is a sin, and, in the second place, it is cowardly. 

I shall go on living until the good God sees fit to let 
me off. Meanwhile I find the world not insupport- 
able. I have a few good friends who love me, and I 
retain my curiosity, and I still like a good dinner. 

I am a cheerful soul, by nature.” 

“I am not,” said Pender Fleming, and for a space 
his guest was silent, because there seemed to be noth- 
ing to say to that. Nevertheless, after a little pause, 
he said: 

“Yet, my friend, you have much to live for. You 
have your daughter. I am alone in the world, but 
you have your daughter. Surely there can be no 
sorrow, no affliction, so overwhelming that it can 
drown your joy in that sweet and amiable young 
lady.” (A new description of Vittoria !) 

Pender Fleming stirred in his chair, but he did 
not speak, and presently the Frenchman went on. 
He said: 

“ I envy you that care — that charge. It is a bless- 
ing which has never been granted me. To watch 
over her — to give her pleasure— -to make her life 
289 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


happier day by day — surprise her with proofs of love — 
make sacrifices for her! To devote one’s life to 
making another and younger life beautiful! To see 
her settled at last where her heart has chosen* (For 
in that I like your American ways better than ours. 
I find it charming that the young should follow where 
their hearts lead them.) In good time to hold one’s 
grandchild upon one’s knees! Ah, monsieur, I envy 
you your privilege. Can you be sorrowful in the 
face of that ? I could not be.” 

Pender Fleming’s face was uplifted and terrible to 
see. But the blind Frenchman could not see it. He 
had spoken in all sincerity and in complete ignorance 
of the facts of the other man’s life, for Beau Temple 
had told him no more than that Pender had lost his 
wife many years back, and had never recovered from 
the blow. This was all he knew. He suspected 
it was Pender Fleming with whom Temple had 
quarrelled recently, but he did not know even that. 
Beau’s reticence in the matter seems a little ex- 
traordinary, but then he was a very reticent man 
about other people’s affairs. 

The Frenchman waited a moment for reply or 
comment from his host, and then went on a little 
hastily, for it occurred to him that he had doubtless 
touched the body of an ancient grief, and he was sorry, 
though, after all, it had been the other man who had 
first referred to such matters. He said: 

“ While speaking of your charming daughter, I 
must tell you about a strange recollection which came 
290 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


to me this morning during my ride. When I first 
met Mademoiselle Fleming, a fortnight ago, I realized 
that she was curiously like some lady whom I had 
known long before — many years before. But at 
that time I could not remember who the lady was or 
where I had known her. I suppose my memory 
has gone on working ever since without my conscious 
direction — as memories so often do — and this morn- 
ing, apropos of nothing at all, it came to me who that 
lady was — that I had known her, never at all well 
and only for a short time, in Paris, nearly twenty 
years ago. She was, I think, one of the loveliest 
ladies whom the good God has ever permitted to live 
for a little while here among us men — to prove to 
us what sweetness and light there can be — but she 
had suffered great sorrow and wrong until she could 
bear it no longer, and love had been stronger than 
law, and she had left the home which had been made 
unbearable to her, and had gone away with one who 
worshipped her faithfully. 

“ Monsieur, for many years I could not forget that 
poor lady and the pitiful impression she left upon me. 
I, who never saw her — but they told me that she was 
as beautiful as the daylight — as beautiful as the night 
in summer — could not forget her sweetness and her 
pain. It is very wonderful that Mademoiselle Flem- 
ing, who is scarcely more than a child and who can- 
not have known deep sorrow, should be so like her. 
I should like to say that the lady found at last an 
enduring happiness to make up to her what she had 
291 


so 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


suffered, but doubtless it was too late. She had left 
a little child behind her, monsieur — a little child 
which her husband had taken from her, saying she 
was not fit to hold it in her arms. That sweet and 
pitiful lady not fit! So her heart was broken — and 
she died. She knew a little happiness for a little 
time, and then she died. God is at times inscrutable, 
monsieur. We cannot follow His great plans. We 
see such little pieces of them!” 

With what must have been an incredible effort 
the other man asked a question — speaking in a sort 
of whisper, but the Frenchman did not heed the 
strained tone. His thoughts were afar. 

“What was — the name?” 

“The name?” De Coucy hesitated an instant. 
“Ah, well, after all, the lady is dead — God rest her 
sorrowful soul, and give it light and refreshment! — 
I suppose there is no reason why I should not speak 
the name after nearly twenty years. The name was 
Cromwell.” 

“Oh, my God!” said Pender Fleming, in a choked 
cry. “Oh, my God!” And fell to sobbing, with 
hard and terrible gasps. It was the name under 
which Creighton Blake and Bianca had lived during 
their one year together. 

The blind Frenchman sprang to his feet, tingling 
from head to foot. The blood withdrew from his face, 
leaving it as white as paper. Illumination burst upon 
him in a single white flash that was like a flash of light- 
ning. His brain was dazzled with the horror of it. 

292 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

“Her daughter!” cried the Frenchman, in an 
amazed whisper. “Mademoiselle is the child I And 
y OU — t” He drew himself up all at once, very 
stiffly. 

“Monsieur,” said he, in a sharp tone, “monsieur, 

I beg that my servant may be called. It is im- 
possible that I should remain here.” 

There was only the sound of the other s rending 
so t) S — a terrible sound in that still place — and the 
Frenchman spoke again: 

“Monsieur, I have the honor to bid you good- 
day!” He took a step forward, feeling before him 
with his riding-crop, and after it another step, mov- 
ing in the direction of the door. But Pender Flem- 
ing controlled himself by some miracle of self-com- 
mand, and caught the man by the arm. 

“No, wait!” said he, trembling. “Wait! Don’t 
judge me until you know. It’s not just to give judg- 
ment before you know. Bear with me a little while. 
Let me speak. I am alone in the world. My only 
friend has turned from me, my daughter has hardened 
her heart against me. I am alone. Listen for a 
little while, and then, if you wish, go— with the 
others.” 

The Frenchman sat down and took his head into 
his hands. So Pender Fleming told his story from 
the beginning, many years before, up to the quarrel 
with Beaumont Temple and its cause. He told it, 
of course, from his own side, from his own point of 
yiew r but De Coucy made, as it were, a running 
293 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


translation — having, to go by, his memory of Donna 
Bianca and Creighton Blake, his knowledge of Beau 
Temple and Vittoria, and his own judgment of the 
man who sat before him. 

Even then, he could not be pitiless. He could not 
but be sorry for this haunted wreck of a man who had 
suffered so deeply and who had caused so much 
suffering. 

And when the story was done he sat for a long time 
silent, his sightless eyes fixed upon the floor. 

“ It is the most astonishing sequence of events that 
I have ever known,” he said at last. “ It is well- 
nigh incredible — incredible! Did I not speak, a 
short time* ago, of God’s great plans ? Here surely 
is one of them. What God denied to those two, 
long ago, he was storing up for the younger genera- 
tion — for her daughter and for his son. It seems to 
me a great epic of sorrow and love — an epic that is 
lived instead of written. I am overwhelmed by it.” 
He turned a stern and earnest face toward his host. 

“Sorrow and love!” he repeated. “Sorrow and 
love! There has been enough sorrow. Too much, 
Heaven knows! Let the rest be love — and peace — 
sunlight after shadow — the morning after night. 
The key is in your hand, monsieur. Stretch out 
your hand!” 

“No! No!” cried Pender Fleming, in a trembling 
voice. “It is too much! I cannot do it!” 

“Cannot do it? You cannot refuse to do it! I 
will not believe that there is a man living in this 
294 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


world who would hesitate to right such a wrong when 
it was in his power to do it. It is not a duty, it is 
a sacred privilege — a wonderful thing. Monsieur, 
you have been the cause of great suffering. You will 
have one day to answer to God for that. What will 
you put on the other side of the ledger to balance it ? 
God will require something, assuredly, or it will go 
hard with your soul, monsieur, when God gives 
judgment upon you." 

“Is all my world against me asked Pender 
Fleming, in a flat and tired voice. “Is everybody 
against me ?” 

“Yes, monsieur/’ said the blind Frenchman. 
“Even God, I think. For surely it was God who 
brought these two young people together, and He 
will not tolerate your interference, my friend. You 
must give way before Him.” 

The other shivered, for that was almost exactly 
what Beau Temple had said, only Beau had called 
God “Fate,” as have many other people in this and 
other times. He did not answer. He remained 
silent for a little while, sitting lax with bowed head. 
He may have been thinking, or he may have been 
sunk in a kind of thoughtless apathy. But in the 
end he asked timidly, a white and haggard eager- 
ness upon his wrung face, some question about 
Bianca Fleming — or Bianca Cromwell, as she had 
chosen to be known. 

So the Frenchman, who must have divined the 
man’s shamed desire, told all that he knew or could 
295 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


remember about poor Bianca’s life in France, of her 
failing health, of Creighton Blake’s anguished ef- 
forts to save her, and of her final death in the little 
resort in the Pyrenees, where the two had gone for 
mountain air. Pender heard him through in silence, 
his head bent, his hands clasped together — no sign 
about him of what went on within save that now and 
then tears dropped from his eyes and rolled down 
his pendulous cheeks, and they were tears of bitter 
anguish that burned like drops of molten metal. 

But from that De Coucy went on to speak of 
Bianca’s daughter. Despite his stiff and formal 
English, he was an eloquent man when roused, and 
he spoke well and appealingly. He drew poignant 
pictures. He showed how that old blot of sorrow 
and suffering and sin might be cleansed, wiped 
away, in the happiness of the younger generation — 
light born out of darkness — peace out of hatred and 
despair. He pictured Bianca’s daughter, serene 
and at rest in her home, and he pictured the man of 
darkness, reborn through high renunciation, going 
tranquilly down through the remainder of his years 
— his grandchild on his knee. 

He spoke well and shrewdly. He tapped deep and 
hidden springs there — those springs which in even 
the bitterest heart are never quite dry. They gushed 
in Pender Fleming’s dark being — rose to his eyes in 
tears that were no longer drops of molten metal, but 
rivers of refreshment upon that arid soil. The man 
laid his arms upon the great table before him, and 
296 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


buried his face in them. The very foundations of 
him stirred and shook, but they did not yet give way. 
They had been in place too long. 

There fell between the two a space of silence. At 
its end the Frenchman said, gently: 

“Give the child back her promise! Let sunlight 
in after so much darkness!” He rose to his feet, and 
stood waiting. 

“I will — do what I can do,” said Pender Fleming, 
in a broken voice. “Don’t press me now. I think 
I can bear no more to-day. Let me be for a little 
while.” 

“There is no time so good as now,” said Raoul de 
Coucy. But the other said, querulously: 

“Not now! Not now! I— cannot bear any more, 
now.” He got with some stiffness to his feet, moving 
like an old and feeble man. 

“Come to-morrow! To-morrow we will — settle 
it all.” And after a pause, he said: 

“ Bring Beau Temple with you if he will come. I 
quarrelled with him. Tell him I am sorry. Tell 
hirn—I ask him to come.” And the blind man said: 

“I will do that. I will do it with great gladness.” 
He put out his riding-crop, feeling before him, and 
his host led him by the arm to the door, and called 
a servant to take him in charge there. 

“You will forgive me if I go no farther with you,” 
he said. “I seem to be a little spent— a little spent.” 
So they clasped hands, and the door closed between 
them. 


297 


XXIII 


BUT THEY DO NOT FALL 

P ENDER FLEMING went slowly back across 
the room, moving feebly still — like a very old 
man — and sat down before the great table. He was 
indeed spent, as he had said. He was spent phys- 
ically, and in mind and soul. It seemed to him that 
all his being ached with sore fatigue, and he leaned 
his heavy head upon his hands, and a sound which 
was like a sigh and a groan together broke from his 
lips. 

“Let sunlight in after so much darkness!” The 
blind man’s words said themselves over in his mind, 
and his lips repeated them in a soundless whisper. 

“Let sunlight in after so much darkness!” Aye, 
he would be glad to do that. The darkness had en- 
dured too long. He was weary almost to death of it. 
He saw himself a sort of prisoner — self-immured in 
that chill gloom, and it was hateful to him. He look- 
ed back, and marvelled that he should have crouched 
there so many years manacled by useless sorrow 
and hatred and the thirst for revenge. He looked 
forward — that sweet and peaceful picture still in his 
mind, and the sunlight seemed warm and golden to 
298 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


him. He sat in it, and held a child upon his knee. 
His eyes stung with quick tears. 

A sudden impatience stirred him to have done with 
the ugly past, to make the step from night to day — 
strike off those manacles too long worn. He won- 
dered why he had refused and temporized while De 
Coucy was with him. 

“There is no time so good as now.” True words! 
What might not happen before the morrow! 

“No time so good as now.” 

Pender lifted his head, and his sodden cheeks 
glowed with an instant’s red color. His breath be- 
gan to come fast. Why not now, then ? A word, 
and the thing was done. The telephone instrument 
stood upon the table at his elbow. He made use 
of it to call the servants, to give orders, to transact 
most of his daily domestic business. He had but 
to lift the receiver from the hook. A voice would 
answer — the ancient butler’s, probably. He would 
tell the man to find Miss Vittoria and send her to him. 
In five minutes the child would be in the room. 

It was as easy as that. 

He put out his hand toward the telephone instru- 
ment, but the hand trembled exceedingly, and he 
waited to steady it. He tried once more, and the 
hand would not stir. It was as if his brain had no 
control over it — as if the hand were possessed of an 
intelligence of its own, and resisted him. He tried 
again, and he was helpless. Something like anger 
burned in him, and a sudden sensation of vertigo 

299 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


flashed across his eyes. The rebellious hand raised 
itself from the polished mahogany — wavered in air 
— advanced an inch and retreated — fell to shaking 
as if in an ague. He found that he could no more 
touch that instrument of metal and rubber than he 
could have touched a blazing flame. It was im- 
possible. 

Again the wave of anger swept him, and was follow- 
ed by sheer wonderment and something like panic. 
He thought he must be ill. Shall not a man’s own 
limbs obey him ? 

There was yet another way — easier still. He 
could write. A half-dozen words scrawled upon paper 
were enough to set Vittoria free. With a sort of rush 
— a frenzy of haste — he caught up his pen and dipped 
it. Paper lay under his hand. . . . 

After what may have been the space of ten minutes, 
or it may have been more, Pender Fleming sat back 
in his chair, and his head drooped heavily, so that the 
pallid jowls were spread out upon his breast. 

It was too late. He could not do it. Gyves worn 
for twenty years were rusted home. He could not 
strike them oflF. He was appalled at the insignificance 
of his strength before the night of that passion which 
had swayed him for so long — a little child pushing 
against a stone wall — an insect at the foot of a 
mountain. 

The truth was that there was no will to change left 
in him, and at last he knew it clearly. The will was 
atrophied. He was in the grip of a thing so much 
3 00 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


stronger than himself that he could not even stir it. 
He was helpless. 

So he sat and looked the truth in the face, gravely, 
without resentment — acknowledging his master. He 
thought of the good thing he had wished to do, but it 
had already begun to pale before his eyes. He re- 
gretted it but mildly. He thought of that sweet and 
benign picture the Frenchman had painted for him, 
and it seemed to him that it would have been very 
pleasant — in some other world, very far away. But 
it was not for him. It was a sort of mirage. It 
dimmed away and was nothing. It had never been 
anything but a vision — colors thrown upon empty 
air. 

Then abruptly there came before him, unsought, 
unlooked for, the face of Creighton Blake and the 
face of Richard, his son, and the face of Donna 
Bianca with anguished eyes. And at that he trem- 
bled a little and was still. There began slowly to 
mount along his veins, like the course of an insidious 
drug, the poison of the old bitter hatred— the salt, 
unslaked thirst for revenge. It rose about him like 
dark waters — like the resurgence of an inundating 
sea held off for a little while by flimsy dikes. It 
met over his head in silent waves; he drank of its 
bitterness, he breathed it into his lungs, it swept him 
away with an overwhelming, a resistless might. 

There was a knocking at the study door. When 
it had been repeated twice Pender heard it, and said, 
“Come in!” The ancient butler handed him a sealed 
3 01 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


note sent, he said, by the hand of a groom from 
Cedar Hill. Pender Fleming glanced at the super- 
scription, found it unfamiliar, and tore open the 
envelope. He looked to the bottom of the single 
sheet, saw the name there, and gave a smothered 
cry — afterward sat staring before him, the paper 
crumpled in one unsteady hand. 

After a space the servant coughed, and said that 
the groom from Cedar Hill was waiting to take back 
an answer. Then his master roused himself and 
read the few brief sentences. 

Creighton Blake begged Mr. Fleming to accord 
him a half-hour’s interview upon a matter of great 
importance. He was staying, for a day or two, with 
friends at Cedar Hill. 

Again the master of Standish fell into a fit of silent 
staring, but at its end looked up, and there was a 
strange light in his pale eyes before which the old 
servant found himself oddly uncomfortable. He 
said : 

“Tell the messenger to say to this — gentleman 
that 1 shall be glad to receive him, with his son , to- 
morrow at three.” 

The ancient butler said, “Very good, sir!” and 
went out of the room, closing the door. 

Behind him Pender Fleming broke into a fit of 
dreadful laughter. 


XXIV 


OUTSIDE THE STUDY DOOR 

D URING that evening Richard Blake called 
Vittoria up by ’phone and told her that his father 
was at Cedar Hill, had communicated with Pender 
Fleming, and that the two of them were to come by 
appointment on the next afternoon to Standish. It 
was, of course, the first hint she had of the matter, 
and excited her hugely. She had put no belief at all 
in the possibility of her father’s retreat. Despite 
Beau Temple’s words, she had hardly given it a 
moment’s thought, for it seemed to her quite in- 
credibly inconsistent with Pender’s character. She 
considered that she knew him too well for that. It 
would require, she said to herself, some gigantic force 
to move that strange being, and she could not see 
where the gigantic force was to come from. The 
old catch phrase came to her mind, and she smiled 
over it. When an irresistible force meets an im- 
movable object, what will result ? What, indeed ? 
Pender Fleming seemed to her to be about as im- 
movable as anything she knew of. What was the 
irresistible force ? And even if it came, what then ? 
The old catch question had never been solved. 

3°3 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


She thought of Beau Temple and the broken friend- 
ship, but shook her head. A permanent break there 
would hurt her father shrewdly, but would it move 
him ? No, not twenty broken friendships — had he 
such. What was it, then, that had happened ? 
Creighton Blake had asked for an interview, and 
Pender had consented to see him — together with his 
son! She could not understand it at all, and she 
began to grow uneasy. The acquiescence had been 
too ready. It was very unlike Pender — unless, 
perhaps, he had something up his sleeve. That 
would be like him — very like! 

She was still standing near the telephone some ten 
minutes later when the bell rang again, and it was 
Beaumont Temple at Lone Tree Hill. He had to 
tell her of De Coucy’s interview, which the blind 
Frenchman had faithfully reported to him upon 
arriving at home, and while he had, of course, to con- 
dense a good deal, he told her the gist of what had 
passed between the two men. 

“I really think Pender is breaking up,” Temple 
said. “It seems almost incredible, but I believe he’s 
giving way. Have you seen him ?” 

She said no, but told of the meeting arranged for 
the morrow, and at that Temple gave an exclamation 
of surprise, and was silent for a little while. At 
last he said: 

“Without in the least knowing why, 1 don’t quite 
like it. To be sure it sounds like a definite surrender 
— kisses all round and general hilarity, but — I don’t 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


know. He’s piling it on. It’s a bit too thick. I 
should be better pleased with less apparent eager- 
ness. I wonder if Pender’s digging a mine of any 
sort.” 

“I don’t quite like it either,” said Vittoria. “I’m 
afraid, a little. I don’t trust him. I wish you’d 
come to-morrow too, Beau. You needn’t enter the 
house, you know.” 

“Oh, I mean to come,” he said. “Didn’t I tell 
you ? He has sent for me. De Coucy and I are 
both to come — though no hour was set. That’s what 
I was thinking about. Pender’s piping all hands 
to quarters. Maybe it’s surrender, and maybe it’s 
fight. I wish I knew which. But I’m no prophet.” 
He was once more silent for a space, while the girl 
waited, but said, finally: 

“I think I’ll just have out a nag and ride to Cedar 
Hill this evening. I should like to talk it over with 
the Blakes. And, in any event, I’ll turn up at Standish 
to-morrow between two and three. I dare say we’re 
both paying the old gentleman a dashed poor com- 
pliment, you know, in suspecting him. I dare say 
it’s quite all right, and that he means to do the hand- 
some thing to-morrow. Let’s believe it, anyhow. 
We shall sleep the better. Good-night, child!” 

Vittoria said: 

“Good-night, Beau, dear. Yes, I dare say you’re 
right.” But she turned away from the telephone 
with an unsmiling face, and went soberly up-stairs 
to her own chamber. She was aware that she ought 

305 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


to be full of a hopeful and happy excitement, but she 
was not; she was full of foreboding. 

What had that fateful morrow in store for her ? 

She got ready for bed, but, finding that sleep was 
out of the question, took up a book and read in it until 
her eyes were heavy with fatigue. Then at last she 
put out the lights, and lay down. It was just mid- 
night. The wind was from the direction of the 
village, and she heard the faint sound of chimes, and 
then twelve thin, clear strokes. Afterward she heard 
the half hour and after that one o’clock. Then at 
last sleep came, and she dreamed a happy dream, and 
awoke in the golden morning refreshed. 

Imaginative fears, heavy enough overnight, rarely 
can face the morning sun. They flee away with the 
shadows. Vittoria’s fears fled before the light of that 
fresh and fragrant day. If they did not entirely 
vanish they retreated to a very polite distance, and 
sat down there quite quietly, making themselves 
as inconspicuous as they could. The girl’s mind 
went back over what she called the accumulation of 
evidence, and, despite her natural distrust of all 
Pender Fleming’s motives (alas, that such a distrust 
should have found place in her, but the man had put 
it there!), in spite of her knowledge of his unbending 
nature, she believed that at last her father was about 
to give way. What it was that had moved him she 
could not imagine — perhaps Beau Temple’s wrath, 
perhaps the blind Frenchman’s eloquence. In any 
case, he seemed to be about to do all that a man could 
306 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


do to repair ancient wrongs, and she was ashamed 
that she had distrusted him. 

She threw a kiss to her beautiful mother, and went 
down to breakfast. After that she took a little walk 
with Mr. Hennessy, but returned presently to her 
walled garden, and sat there for the remainder of 
the morning, reading a parcel of new magazines 
which had just arrived, and devouring the small pink 
box of Russian chocolates which she had taken out 
there some days before and had then forgotten. A 
maid had rescued them and carried them back to 
the house, and they were very stale, but Vittoria had 
periods of being a thrifty young soul, and could not 
bear to throw away even stale chocolates so long as 
they were edible at all. 

The hour between half-past twelve and half-past 
one she employed quite happily up in her room en- 
gaged in personal decoration — with ravishing re- 
sults — lunched at the end of this time, and soon after 
two went out upon the deep side-veranda to await 
the first of the expected visitors. 

The first proved to be Beaumont Temple and M. 
de Coucy, who drove over from Lone Tree Hill, 
arriving promptly at half- past two. Temple was 
flushed and eager — in prodigious spirits. The day 
would seem to have driven away his vapors of doubt 
as well as Vittoria’s. He shook her hands for a long 
time and insisted upon kissing her on both cheeks. 

“It may be my last chance,” he said — but could 
2I 307 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


not look sorrowful, though he tried. “In an hour’s 
time I may have to fight Richard Blake for that 
privilege. Vittoria, my good woman, I believe we’ve 
pushed Pender — the old curmudgeon! — to the brink 
of the precipice. I believe he’s going to make the 
jump. I was doubtful last night, but I feel cheerfuller 
to-day. I believe he means to give way.” 

“And I, too, mademoiselle,” said the blind French- 
man. “I believe it also. I offer my felicitations in 
advance.” 

Vittoria began to try to say how grateful she was 
to him for what he had done, and Temple turned 
away to ring for a servant, saying over his shoulder 
that he would get a word with Pender before the 
Blakes should arrive. Old Griggs came at his ring, 
and Temple sent him to announce that he and M. 
de Coucy had called. 

The man was gone some minutes, then returned 
a little flushed, and avoiding Beau Temple’s eye. 
Mr. Griggs had so few demands made upon his 
diplomatic qualities that they had become, as it were, 
atrophied. 

“Mr. Fleming is asleep, sir,” he said, nervously, 
“and I daren’t waken him before three o’clock — beg- 
ging your pardon, sir. He hasn’t been well, and he 
left strict orders, so the valet says, that he wasn’t to 
be awakened until three. There’s two gentlemen 
expected then — Mr. Blake and Mr. Richard Blake. 
If you could wait until three, sir ? I’m very sorry — ” 

“Yes,” said Beau Temple, slowly. “Yes, to be 
3°8 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


sure. Quite so. IT1 wait. Thanks. That’s all, 
Griggs.” The butler slipped away with what sound- 
ed very like a sigh of relief, but Temple stood for 
some little time looking after him with a puzzled frown. 

“Wont see us until after he’s seen the Blakes!” 
he said to himself. “That’s odd. . . . Why ? . . . Has 
Pender something up his sleeve, after all ? I wonder, 
now.” 

He turned back toward the others, and Vittoria 
asked him if he was going in at once to see her father. 
He said: 

“No, not yet. Pender’s having a nap, so Griggs 
tells me. We’ll wait until the Blakes come.” 

So they sat down and talked together, and in ten 
or fifteen minutes the Blakes, father and son, arrived 
in a motor from Cedar Hill. Vittoria had thought it 
possible that Beatrix Faring might come with them, 
but sfie did not; the men were alone. 

They came at once round the house to the open 
veranda, for they had seen the three people there, 
and Vittoria met them at the top of the low steps. 

The younger Blake was not at all the sort of man 
to betray emotion in public. When he was at great 
heights or depths of feeling he merely looked grim 
save that his eyes were eloquent to those who took 
the trouble to meet them. He looked grim as he 
came up the steps of the veranda at Standish, and 
his hand, when Vittoria’s took it, was rather cold. 
She was aware that her own hand was trembling. 
Blake said, in a low tone: 

3°9 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“At last, I think.” And she answered: 

“Yes, I think so, Richard. I think it’s — all right 
at last.” They stood looking at each other for a 
moment with a singular gravity — as well they might 
do, for the whole of their future lives hungin a balance. 
Then the young man said : 

“May I present my father to you ?” and gave way 
for Creighton Blake, who had been standing behind 
him. 

The elder man bared his head and came a step 
forward. He made a very courtly and old-fashioned 
bow without offering his hand, but Vittoria put out 
her two hands to him and he took them. She said: 

“I saw you once at a distance, sir — across a ball- 
room.” And Creighton Blake said: 

“I remember.” 

Rather oddly there flashed into the girl’s mind that 
scene in the walled garden when her father had first 
caught sight of Richard Blake and had thought him 
a phantom of the past. She looked now upon this 
melancholy white-haired man, with his scored and 
furrowed face, and it seemed to her incredible that 
only twenty years past he had been enough like 
Richard to make possible such a mistake as that. 
But as she looked upon him longer she began to see 
that the features of father and son were in truth the 
same, the height alike, that they had the same trick 
of carrying their heads. She was appalled to see how 
grief could ravage and destroy. She turned her head 
for an instant, and saw that her lover had joined 
310 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


Beaumont Temple and M. de Coucy at the other 
end of the porch — out of earshot. Then she said: 

“I sent you a message by Richard. Did he give 
it you ?” 

The white-haired man bent his head. “It was all 
that is kind — all that is sweet.” 

“I wanted you to know how I felt,” said she. “I 
couldn’t bear to have you think that when I found 
out I — blamed. I wanted you to know that I was 
glad— glad!” 

Creighton Blake’s worn face stirred a little. He 
looked down upon the girl with a sort of pathetic 
hunger, and she heard him say, under his breath: 

“Bianca’s child!” He said it two or three times. 
And afterward he said, aloud: 

“You are so like her that it is a kind of miracle. 
I knew that when I saw you the first time across a 
ball-room. But you were a child then — unmoved, 
untouched at heart. Love has been at work since. 
N ow — it is hard to believe that you are not Bianca.” 

He filled his lungs with a deep breath, and seemed 
to straighten his shoulders. 

“I must let your — let Mr. Fleming know I am 
here. I must send in my name.” He met the girl’s 
eyes once more with a grave smile. 

“Never fear!” said he. “We shall set you free 
here to-day. You and the boy shall be free to live 
out — what — couldn’t be lived before. It’s meant to 
be. I’m convinced of that. At first, when Richard 
first met you I was sorry — afraid. I tried to take 
3 11 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


him away with me. I foresaw all this opposition. 
I thought unhappiness would come of it — broken 
hearts — more tragedy upon the old tragedy. But it 
was meant to be. Neither Pender nor I could stop 
it — nothing! It had to be. Please God, it may end 
in joy and lifelong happiness. SheTl — look down on 
it and see — and be glad, I think.” 

He turned away before the girl could speak. 
Richard Blake came forward to meet him, and they 
went toward one of the three long windows which 
stood open into the house. At just that moment old 
Griggs appeared coming out, and spoke to Creighton 
Blake. Vittoria saw the man nod his head, and after 
a moment he followed the servant indoors. 

Richard turned back to where she was, and said; 

“Mr. Fleming wants to see my father alone for a 
few moments, and then wants me to join them. Shall 
I wait out here ?” 

“We might go inside,” said she, “and wait in the 
hall. Oh, Richard! Richard!” She had begun 
to be seized by spasms of shivering, as if she were 
cold, and she found that her breath came and went 
irregularly and fast. They walked together into the 
drawing - room upon which the veranda gave, and 
crossed it to the chief entrance -[hail. There was a 
low stair-landing opposite the door, up only three or 
four steps, broad, with a row of six casemented 
windows, and a long, cushioned bench beneath them. 
The glass of the windows was colored, and had been 
brought by Pender Fleming’s father from a disman- 
312 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


tied German chapel of the fifteenth century. It told 
the story of the Prodigal Son in six quaint and rather 
absurd panels. 

“We’ll wait on the stair-landing,” Vittoria said, 
“and then you can go to my father immediately he 
sends word.” She told the ancient Griggs, who was 
hovering near, where they would be, and they went 
up to the window embrasure. It faced the west, 
and the afternoon sun, filtering through the leaves 
of a beech outside, had begun to send slanting beams 
here and there through the pictured glass. 

Vittoria stood still for a moment before seating 
herself, and the sunbeams fell across her head and 
breast and lay about her feet on the floor — billets and 
lozenges of azure and gules and or. The man’s heart 
was wrung with an intolerable ache of love and sheer 
delight at her splendid beauty, standing so, bathed 
in jewelled light. It was more poignant than a sharp 
pain. 

She turned her head, saw him staring at her 
strangely, and gave him a little smile. 

“What is it, Richard ? What are you thinking?” 

“I was thinking,” said he, “that you are so beauti- 
ful that I can hardly bear it. Does that sound like 
nonsense ? — because it isn’t.” 

“I don’t care whether it’s nonsense or not,” she 
said. “I love it. If you didn’t think I was — nice- 
looking I should drown myself. And I shall, too, 
if you ever get over thinking it. You told me that 
first evening at Catharine Dudley’s dance that I was 
3G 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


beautiful. I’ve never forgotten. I wondered if 
you’d ever say it again. And now you have. 

“Oh!” she cried, “I can’t talk about my — my 
looks! Richard, what are they saying behind that 
door down' yonder? What are they saying about 
you and me ? I’m deathly afraid. I’m cold with 
fear.” She pressed closer to him, held him by the 
shoulders, hid her face upon his coat. 

“ It means so much — so much !” she said. “ Richard, 
do you know, after the other night in the garden, I 
thought — there couldn’t be anything more. I thought 
we’d reached the highest height in all the world. 
I was quite contented to go on living with just the 
memory of that. I had no hope — not the smallest 
hope of anything else. I was really happy. But 
now — ” She tightened her hold upon him with a 
sudden strength. 

“I can’t lose you!” she cried. “I think I should 
die. He’s got to set me free, Richard! I couldn’t 
bear it. It would be — ” 

Her head went up swiftly, and for a single tense 
instant the two stared into each other’s eyes. 

“What was that?” she said, in a whisper. “I 
thought I heard — something. What was that sound ?” 

Richard Blake’s head turned slowly until he faced 
the hall beneath. 

“It might have been a book dropped on the floor,” 
he said, but his face was white. He began to take 
the girl’s hands down from his shoulders — free him- 
self from her hold. 

3H 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 

“ Perhaps I’d better go and see.’’ Once more their 
eyes met, and Vittoria gave a low cry. 

“Ah, go! go quickly!” she said. “It’s the door at 
the end of the corridor. Please be quick!” 

He ran down the steps without further speech, and 
the girl stood looking after him, her hands caught up 
over her mouth lest she break into a scream, the 
beams of sunlight slanting across her head and 
shoulders— billets and lozenges of azure and gules 
and or. 


XXV 


THE IRRESISTIBLE FORCE MEETS WITH THE IM- 
MOVABLE OBJECT 

AND Pender Fleming sat in his dim room, where 
r\ the sun never entered, and waited and waited 
for his great hour to come. 

After so many years ! 

Perhaps he was quite mad at last. Perhaps he had 
been mad all that long time. Who shall say of a man 
that has dwelt for nearly twenty years in an air 
poisoned by hatred, malice, bitterness, despair — 
breathing that air into his lungs until all his blood is 
foul with it, until body and heart and soul reek with 
its poison — who shall say of such a man just where 
sanity ends and mania begins ? 

Perhaps it is kinder to believe that he was mad. 

He never went to bed at all on the night after he 
had received Creighton Blake’s note. He sat all 
night alone in his study. He ate no dinner, he read 
none of his heavy books. He sat and stared before 
him or hid his face, shivering, or broke into a long 
fit of that dreadful tittering laughter. But once — 
toward midnight — he unlocked and opened a certain 
drawer of the great table-desk, and took from it 
3 l6 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


an object which he held for a long time in his hands, 
gloating over it, and at last hid among the littered 
papers before him. 

Once or twice during the night his valet knocked at 
the door, a triple knock so that his master should 
know who it was, and once he heard Pender stirring 
about within, but there was no answer, and so the 
man went away. He was not greatly disturbed, for 
he had been in that house nearly ten years, and no 
eccentricity of the master of Standish could have 
surprised him very much. 

He came again in the morning, and finally, between 
nine and ten, was admitted, and received orders for 
breakfast — which, by the way, he removed almost 
untasted. It has been said that the servant was in a 
measure surprise-proof, yet even he went away with 
round and frightened eyes. Something during that 
long night had ravaged Pender Fleming’s physical 
being incredibly. He had become a sort of dreadful 
caricature of himself — the pallid face deep scored 
with haggard lines, the pendulous lip outhanging 
grotesquely. All the man’s great burden of unwhole- 
some flesh seemed to hang loose upon his bones, like 
an ill-fitting garment. He was somehow horrible 
to see. 

Again at noon he ate nothing, but drank a stiff glass 
of brandy-and-water. He waited and waited for that 
great hour, and from time to time laid his hand upon 
the object hidden under the papers, as if to make 
sure it was still there, ready for use. But by this time 
3i7 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


the mental strain under which he was laboring, to- 
gether with the lack of sleep and of food, had begun 
to tell upon him badly. His head was light and very 
feverish, with a singing in the ears — the brandy-and- 
water, after long abstinence from food, may have 
had something to do with that — and his eyes were 
playing grotesque tricks with him: he seemed to see 
through an orifice in a cloud of darkness. When he 
directed his gaze upon an object across the room he 
saw that object well enough, but his field of vision 
was a space no more than a yard square; everything 
beyond that, above it or below it or to either side, 
was first cloudy gray, confused in outline, then quite 
black. Also, if he looked steadily upon anything for 
more than a few seconds, it began to stir as if it were 
alive; sometimes it jumped up and down, sometimes 
turned gravely heels over head, sometimes performed 
a grotesque but interesting dance. 

At first he was a little concerned about this — afraid 
that it might balk him in what he had to do, but the 
fear did not endure long. He was beyond trifles. 
His extraordinary state of mind and body — which 
was not altogether unlike a state of drunkenness — 
swept them grandly aside. His mind could hold 
but one thing just then: the splendor of that coming 
hour — that crowning deed! 

After so many years! 

At half-past two the telephone at his elbow rang 
three short calls, and he took down the receiver. 
It was the ancient Griggs, announcing Mr. Temple 
3i8 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


and “Mounceer dee Koosy.” Pender had forgotten 
them both — forgotten that they were asked to call on 
this day. The interruption set him to storming in a 
childish and absurd rage. He cursed the astonished 
butler wickedly, then for a moment calmed himself, 
and told the lie about being asleep. But even after 
that was done, the servant gone with his message, 
Pender trembled and swore, sitting alone in his 
shadows — called Beau Temple and the Frenchman 
outrageous names — tramped up and down the room 
excitedly — was on the point of having the two gentle- 
men turned out of the house. 

Indeed, into such a jangle of overstrained nerves 
had this trivial interruption thrown him that when, 
half an hour later, the telephone bell rang again, the 
man dropped forward against the edge of the big 
table with a cry that was almost a scream. 

Griggs’s voice said that Mr. Blake and Mr. Richard 
Blake had arrived, and Pender began to shiver very 
violently from head to foot, so that the receiver 
thumped against his ear and his teeth chattered. 
He made a tremendous effort, and controlled his 
voice. 

“Show Mr. — Blake in. Tell Mr. Richard Blake 
to wait five minutes. In five minutes I will ring. 
Then — I want him.” 

His heart was beating in slow, enormous throbs, 
like a railway locomotive going up-hill. He thought 
he heard the sound of them — so like the sound of the 
coughing, gasping engine — and he felt with each throb 
3 J 9 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


a great surge of blood up into his head, which almost 
burst under the impact. The door opened, a name 
was murmured, and Creighton Blake entered the 
room. The door closed again behind him. He 
came a step forward, peering a little, for the window- 
blinds were drawn and the place in a half darkness. 

With a scuffling sound Pender Fleming got to his 
feet behind the broad mahogany table, and stood 
there, bent forward, his hands upholding him. His 
face was ghastly, and he was shaking all over, like 
a man in a fit. Creighton Blake saw him, and came 
forward another step or two, saying: 

“I am here/’ 

“ At last!” said Pender Fleming, with a sort of sob. 
“At last — after all these years in hell!” His tongue 
began to stammer thickly. 

“A r-reckoning at last!” said he. “Now, y-you 
p-p-pay. First y-you, then your s-s-son — both Blakes 
together. Both Bl-lakes g-gone where I-Pve been 
for t-t-twenty years. Then I can die in peace.” 

His wavering, groping fingers found the thing 
which had been hidden under the papers, and raised 
it a little way. He waited, one hand over his eyes, 
because the other man had suddenly begun to perform 
the most surprising feats. He had begun to jump 
from side to side with incredible agility, though neither 
his arms nor his legs seemed to stir. And wherever 
he jumped he left a sort of image of himself — a ghost, 
an eidolon — until there were, almost at once, a dozen 
Creighton Blakes in the room — tall, gaunt gentle- 
320 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


men with white hair and mustache, furrowed face, 
grave and courtly manner. 

The visitor said: 

“ I have not come to offer you a reckoning. I of- 
fered that many years ago, and you refused it — 
though it is still yours, if you wish. I have come to 
make a plea for my son.” 

Pender Fleming gave a shout. He thought he 
knew now which of those crowded images was real. 
He raised the revolver quickly and fired. It was a 
small weapon of .32 calibre, but it made an appalling 
noise in that closed room — outside, through the thick 
panels, it seems to have sounded like a book dropped 
on the floor — and the place was instantly full of acrid, 
biting smoke. 

Creighton Blake sprang forward with a cry, and 
as he came near, large and distinct and unmistakable 
now, the other man pulled the trigger of his pistol 
again, but the cartridge failed to explode; and, in an 
instant, the weapon was struck from his hand and 
fell some distance away upon the floor. It was a 
brief, inglorious, pitifully unequal struggle. Pender 
Fleming had the sensation of being hurled violently 
from a great way off, backward, until he fell, half 
fainting, into the chair where he had sat, his head 
hanging over the chair’s back, his legs and arms 
asprawl. 

Blake stood above him, white-faced, with fierce 
eyes. 

“Murder /” he cried. “Youd murder me ?” He 
321 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


seemed to feel, for the moment, nothing but sheer 
astonishment and anger. He was so angry that he 
was trembling a little with it, and two spots of red 
came out suddenly in his pale cheeks. 

“You’d trap me in here and murder me, would 
you? First me, and then Richard. Good God! 
Are you as vile as that ?” He made a step forward 
with clinched hands, and Pender Fleming seemed to 
try to flatten his gross, sprawling body still farther 
back in the arm-chair. The whites of his eyes show- 
ed all round, and his lips curled hideously back from 
his teeth in a violent, grinning snarl of hate and fear. 
He looked like a cornered animal whose strength is 
gone, so that it can fight no longer, only grin and 
snarl and wait for death. 

The white-haired man gazed down upon him as 
upon something loathsome. 

“What a vile and a contemptible coward!” said he. 
“What an abominable monster!” He thought he 
heard a sound behind him and turned swiftly to see, 
but there was no one. What he had heard was the 
door of the room opening a few inches, and closing 
again, for Richard Blake to look in. He went a step 
toward the other side of the room, peering through the 
shadows, but all was still there again, and so he turned 
back. He picked up the fallen pistol and slipped it 
into his pocket, then moved once more close to the 
big table, and gazed down upon the man who sat 
behind it. 

“ A coward !” he said, reflectively. “Yes, you have 
322 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


been a coward from the very first — from the beginning. 
It is only cowards who are brutal enough and mali- 
cious enough to inflict upon a woman such cruelties 
as — she suffered from you — you beast! You filthy 
beast! It’s only cowards who do what you did. 
They do it because they are weak and contemptible. 
Brutality is their only strength. 

“And then,” said Creighton Blake — “then when 
she could bear no more, when I had taken her away 
from you, and was trying to give her a little poor 
happiness, did you follow, as a man would have done 
— face me — make me answer for robbing you ? Not 
you ! Not you ! You hid yourself here in your house, 
and feared and hated and cursed. You were afraid! 
And after that— when she— had died, and I returned 
and wrote to you to say that I was ready now to 
answer for what I had done— ready to give you such 
satisfaction as a man may offer — the risk of his life, 
before you — what then? You were afraid! You never 
even answered my letter. I wrote again, and still you 
hid yourself, and hated and hated, and were afraid. 

“Your child grew up to be a girl and a young 
woman. Did you play a father’s part to that mother- 
less girl — take her out into the world — try to make her 
life a happy life ? Not you, again! You hid your- 
self still. You were afraid the world would re- 
member. You had a coward’s miserable pride. You 
remained here, crouching in the dark like a horrible 
gigantic spider, and secreted hatred and malice and 
fear — always fear. 

aa 323 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“So we come to the end. Your daughter and my 
son love each other. Ah ! there was a bitter blow to 
you, eh, my poisonous friend ? You lie to the child, 
extort a promise from her; and then, to make more 
certain, you’d murder me and my son. What hells 
are there, Fleming, black enough, foul enough, for 
such as you ? I wonder.” He made a restless, 
nervous movement, as if his anger were hard to en- 
dure with calmness. 

“I came here to make a plea,” he said. “I came 
here to beg you to forget what has been, and to let 
these young people, who have been innocent of harm 
toward you, have their happiness. A plea!” The 
man’s voice rose contemptuously. 

“A plea to such as you! I could laugh at myself 
for a fool.” 

With an abrupt movement he pushed several loose 
sheets of paper across toward the silent man, who lay 
back in his chair, and seemed scarcely to breathe — 
looked like one dead in utter terror. 

“Write!” said Creighton Blake, in his sharp, con- 
temptuous tone. “Write, giving your daughter back 
her promise. There’s ink before you, and paper. 
Be quick!” 

Pender Fleming drew a hoarse breath, and his lips 
twisted, drew back once more into that silent, grinning 
snarl which made him look so like a cornered animal. 
But he did not move. 

“Then I’ll make you,” said the other man, briefly, 
and drew the revolver from his coat -pocket. At 
324 - 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


sight of it Pender Fleming uttered a thin cry. Blake 
opened the weapon and spun the cylinder under his 
thumb. There was one spent cartridge and one 
which had failed to explode. The other three were 
untouched. He snapped the breech to, and folded 
his arms, holding the revolver in his right hand. 

“ You will write,” said he, in a brisk tone, with no 
anger in it, no threat. “ You will write, or this is the 
end of you. You have done nothing but ill in your 
life, Pender. You have harmed all who have come 
near you all your life long. You are like a poisonous 
reptile, and poisonous reptiles should be destroyed 
without hesitation. Once before I have rescued a 
victim of yours, and, thank God! she lived to know a 
little brief happiness after she had come out from 
under your shadow. Now I am going to rescue 
another. Oh yes, I know the promise was to ex- 
tend beyond your life — to the length of the girl’s own. 
But she is young, my friend. And she is very much 
in love. Words aren’t worth much when love 
comes. With you gone, she’ll find a way. Write 
what I tell you, or this is the end of all things for you. 
. . . And I shall not regret ridding the earth of such a 
thing. I shall be proud of it. My own life is spent. 
I shall follow you, conscious of having done a good 
act.” 

He took out his watch, looked at it, and laid it upon 
the table before him. He said: 

“I’ll give you two minutes,” and folded his arms 
once more. 


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One wonders how far the man was sincere — how 
far he would have gone toward carrying out his 
threat. 

But Pender Fleming lay back in his arm-chair 
incapable of movement. He was cold, physically 
cold to the very marrow, and shivered with it, and he 
was afraid with a fear more bitter, more chill, more 
paralyzing, than he had thought could exist in the 
world of men. 

By what sorcery had Creighton Blake penetrated 
to the nethermost depths of his soul and recognized 
what lay crouching there ? For Blake had spoken 
the truth. He was a coward. He had always been 
a coward, and he had always known it, though, like 
many another before him, he had covered it with a 
cloak of sternness, of repellant silence, of tyranny, 
of brutal harshness. All his life he had been in secret 
afraid of little things and big. As a boy he had been 
afraid of the other boys — afraid of horses, of high 
places, of the water, of traffic in the streets. And he 
had tried to hide it with bluster and the affectation 
of love of solitude. As a man he had been afraid of 
innumerable things, and had lied and pretended and 
dissembled to conceal it. He had been secretly 
afraid of his wife until he found that she was afraid of 
him. Then he had ill-treated her incredibly. When 
she had fled he had been afraid of the world’s 
laughter — scorn — the pointing finger, and so had 
hidden himself behind a mask of solitude and of grief 
that was — to do him justice — by no means unreal. 

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But most of all things or beings in this world he 
had been afraid of Creighton Blake, and so had 
hated him most, and now the man knew it and had 
come to mock him. Creighton Blake, strong, fear- 
less, a terrible figure, stood over him, searching his 
craven soul, and saw it as if the daylight struck in 
there, and knew that he was master. 

From all the others he had hidden what shivered 
there within him — from Bianca, from Bianca’s 
daughter, from Beaumont Temple. The mask had 
been a good mask — had served him well. But 
Creighton Blake saw beneath it as if it were not 
there: saw and knew and was scornful. Only 
cowards who have well hidden their cowardice under 
a mask of pride can realize the intolerable bitterness 
of the man’s abasement, now that his garments were 
stripped from him and he lay naked. He writhed 
with it as with a physical agony. It seared him 
like a devouring flame. It was shame more poignant- 
ly terrible than any words can give even a dim image 
of. And Creighton Blake stood by and watched! 

What was that question Vittoria had put to herself? 
“When an irresistible force meets with an im- 
movable object, what will the result be ?” The old 
catch question. Vittoria had wondered, but her 
father knew now. He knew where the flaw was in 
that question. For there exists no immovable object 
in this universe. Creighton Blake’s will and his fear 
of it were the irresistible force. He himself had 
passed for the immovable object, but he was not — he 
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was a lie, a cheat, a sham. He was afraid to the 
bottom of his soul. 

He looked with despairing eyes at that still man 
before him. The eyes fell upon the little, bright, 
deadly thing in the man’s hand, and he gave a violent 
shiver. 

“Death ?” He looked into the face of death and 
his mouth was dry and his bones turned to water. 
Fear ran icy fingers up and down his back. What 
though life meant suffering and loneliness and shame 
and dishonor, he clung to it with desperate hands. 
He could not die. He was afraid to. 

“One minute and a half,” said Creighton Blake. 
“You have thirty seconds left of this life of yours.” 
He unfolded his arms. 

Like a manikin pulled by wires Pender Fleming’s 
body jerked forward suddenly over the broad table. 
His face lay among the papers, his hands clawed there 
feebly. He thought he screamed, but his lips made 
only whispering noises. 

“I will do it!” he cried, in those desperate whis- 
pers. “I will do it! For God’s sake, don’t — kill 
me! Let me live! I will do it.” He pushed him- 
self up to a sitting posture. His hands scrambled 
among the things before him. 

Creighton Blake inked a pen and held it out. He 
said: 

“ Write what I tell you !” And the other whispered : 

“Yes! Yes!” 

“Write, ‘I was wrong.’” 

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With an incredible effort Pender Fleming wrote the 
words. 

“‘I release my daughter from her promise to me. 
I give my free consent to her marriage with Richard 
Blake. I wish her happiness/ ” 

The pen traced the words very slowly, with infinite 
labor. It was like a child writing. The man’s head 
hung forward almost upon the table before him — his 
mouth open and awry. 

“ Sign it!” 

The signature was scrawled at the bottom, still 
with slow pains, and the pen rolled away from the 
slackened hand. 

Creighton Blake drew a deep breath. He took the 
paper, blotted it carefully, and put it in his pocket. 
He made as if to lay the pistol down, but glanced at 
the man bowed before him, and slipped that into his 
pocket, also. Then he turned to go, but half-way 
across the room came back. 

“I shall put the proper sort of face upon this,” 
said he. “Your daughter shall never know her 
release did not come from you willingly. But as a 
safeguard I shall tell my son the truth — no one else. 
If I know you, and I think I do, Pender — I think I 
know you well — you will be silent also — for your 
pride’s sake. You’ll never let it be known that you 
gave way because you were afraid. So far as I am 
concerned, you can go on safely, hiding yourself— 
playing out your farce to the end of your life. I won’t 
give you away.” 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


He looked once more upon that bowed silent figure, 
and then turned and left the room, closing the door 
after him. 

So Pender Fleming was left alone in his darkened 
room, seated there where he had sat so many years. 
He had paid the price in shame and in mean humilia- 
tion, but he was alive. Stripped of honor and of 
pride — naked in his abasement — still he lived, and 
probably would go on living for years to come, for 
he was not a very old man. He looked starkly into 
those future years, and they were cold and gray and 
lonely. He knew that after the first writhings of 
anguish were over he would gather together a few 
miserable shreds of what had been pride, and, hud- 
dling them about him, would go on, more or less as he 
had always gone — aping, pretending, hiding what 
must be hidden, until the last day of all. It was a 
dreary prospect and he took small pleasure in it, but 
he was alive. He hugged that thought to him — 
warmed it in his bosom. All else was gone from him, 
but he was still alive. 

It is perhaps the measure of his measureless fall 
that he fell to gloating over that, 


XXVI 


all’s well at last 

W HEN Creighton Blake went out from Pender 
Fleming’s study and closed the door he found 
his son waiting for him near the stair-landing in the 
hall. The younger man was a little pale, and his 
face had its hard, grim look. He met his father with 
a low-voiced exclamation, and looked at him anx- 

iously. 

“You’re not hurt, then?” he demanded. And 
Creighton Blake said : 

“No. You heard that shot?” 

“Vittoria and I both heard it — heard a noise, at 
least. We were here waiting. I went to the door 
and opened it a few inches and looked in. The place 
was full of powder-smoke, so I knew at once what 
had happened, but I saw you standing up and talking 
to Fleming, so I knew there’d been no great harm 
done. I told Vittoria that it must have been a heavy 
book dropped on the floor. It sounded rather like 

that.” , , 

“Where is she — Vittoria?” asked the elder man, 

and his son said: 

“Out on the porch with the others. He drew a 

33 1 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


sigh which seemed to express deep dejection and some 
bitterness. 

“So the man was shamming, after all! And it’s to 
do all over again. I wish he’d shot at me. I should 
have killed him, I think.” 

“You wouldn’t have had to,” said Creighton Blake. 
“I didn’t. The man’s a coward. I only threatened 
him. Gad, what a miserable coward! It was 
rather horrible to see. Well, I got it, anyhow.” 

Richard Blake began to tremble. He caught his 
father’s arm, staring into the elder man’s face. 

“What d’you mean? Got what? You don’t 
mean to say — ” 

“Oh yes, I do!” said Creighton Blake, laughing 
excitedly. “That’s just what I do mean to say. 
I blackguarded him for a bit, and threatened him, 
and he gave in.” 

The younger man leaned against the stair-railing 
and covered his face with his hands. But his father 
clapped him upon the back, crying: 

“ Come, come, lad ! Buck up ! It’s all right. We’ve 
won. Come out and tell the girl. Don’t stand there 
like a graven image!” He slipped an arm about 
his son’s shoulders, and drew him along toward 
the door of that room which gave upon the side- 
veranda. 

“I got it in writing,” said he. “I was taking no 
risks. I got it down in black and white with signa- 
ture, and Fleming won’t go back on it for his miser- 
able pride’s sake.” He slipped his free hand into a 
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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


pocket and withdrew the folded paper. He gave it 
to Richard Blake. 

“Take it out and give it to her for a betrothal 
present. It will be welcome, I think.” But when 
the younger man had read the few words he thrust 
it back again into his father’s hand. 

“Give it to her yourself!” said he. “You got it — 
God knows how! It’s yours to give. She’ll like 
to have it come from you.” He drew a great breath 
of relief and relaxation and joy. 

“I’ve had a bad quarter of an hour,” he confessed, 
“since I looked in through that door.” 

They went through the drawing-room, and, at the 
open French windows which gave upon the porch, 
the younger man fell behind so that his father might 
be first. Creighton Blake emerged, holding the paper 
in his hand. He said: 

“Where’s my future daughter-in-law ?” And Vit- 
toria ran to him with a cry. The man held up his 
paper before her eyes, saying: 

“ Read that, young woman ! Read it !” She read it 
and gave a small shriek of delight, clapping her hands 
together like a child. Behind her Beau Temple said: 
' “By Jove, he’s done it! Hurrah for Old Pender! 
I didn’t know he had it in him. Good old Pender!” 
Vittoria turned and threw her arms about his neck. 
For the second time that day the man got more than 
his strict rights. He beamed down upon the head 
that was burrowing into his coat, and the others, 
standing about them, laughed. 

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BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


“Here! here!” Beau Temple said. “Stop that! 
Do you want to get me knifed in the back some dark 
night? Your young man has a red gleam in his 
eye already. Get away from me. My life’s in 
danger !” The girl patted his cheeks with her two 
hands, called him a darling — whereat Beau Tem- 
ple said: “Pooh! Pooh!” — and stood away from 
him. 

“I must go to my father!” she cried. “He’s all 
alone in there. I want to thank him for being a 
dear.” She turned toward the open window, but 
Creighton Blake was before her. 

“I — ah, I wouldn’t go in just now, I think,” said 
he. “Perhaps a bit later. I think your father 
would rather be alone for a while. You see — he’s a 
little upset — a little nervous. We’ve been talking 
about things — ” 

She said, “Oh!” soberly, and looked for a moment 
into the man’s eyes. It struck her all at once that 
Creighton Blake’s manner and bearing had altered 
greatly in that short time within the house. He had 
gone in bowed, grief-ridden, hesitant: had emerged 
with erect head and flushed cheeks, with a war-like 
gleam under his gray brows. She said, “Oh!” 
again, and it may be that she understood a little — 
knew that something had occurred behind that closed 
door which it would be best to know no more of. 
So she turned away, and found her lover beside her, 
silent, with glowing eyes. Apropos of nothing in 
particular, she began to blush all over, and was 
334 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


aware that her heart beat very fast. She looked over 
her shoulder with a little quick laugh. 

“ There’s such a lot of people here!” she said. 
“Come down into my garden with me!” 

Beaumont Temple watched the two go down across 
the lawn until they were out of sight, and he nodded 
his head. 

“All’s well at last!” said he. “‘God’s in His 
heaven,’ ” and turned his eyes to Creighton Blake. 

“Pender has surprised me. I was a little afraid. 
I distrusted him. I must shake his hand for this.” 

The other man looked a bit uncomfortable. He 
said: 

“Perhaps — of course I can’t say much, but — per- 
haps I ought to tell you that — well, he wasn’t quite 
prepared to do it, you know — not quite prepared. 
It took some urging.” And at that Beau Temple 
nodded, for he had found out what he wanted to 
know. He, as well as Vittoria, had noted that erect 
head and martial bearing — had had his suspicions. 

“Well, it’s done, anyhow,” said he. And Creigh- 
ton Blake said: 

“Yes, it’s done.” The eyes of the two men met 
and held. 

“So there remains,” said Temple, “only to get the 
youngsters married — and as soon as possible. This 
is June, the month of brides. Prod your son into 
insisting upon an immediate marriage. I dare say 
he won’t need prodding, though. Vittoria will 
hold up her hands in horror, of course— protest- 
335 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


argue. Secretly she’ll be delighted, for she’s very 
dull here. And Pender — ” 

“Ah!” said the other man, softly, and the eyes of 
the two still held with a certain significance. 

“You’re wise,” Creighton Blake said. “Very 
wise. I’m altogether with you. We must speak for 
an early marriage — insist upon it. One never 
knows — ” 

“And meanwhile,” said the younger man — “mean- 
while, perhaps the child might spend a few days with 
Mrs. Faring — a woman’s essential at these times. 
Doubtless the two of them will be going up to town 
for clothes — all the mysterious things brides have to 
be provided with. Then a quiet wedding, eh ?” 

Creighton Blake nodded his head without relaxing 
his alert gaze. He had the air to be following some- 
thing obscure in the. other man’s mind — something 
beneath the spoken words. He said: 

“I’ll speak to Mrs. Faring. It shall be done, you 
may be sure. Perhaps we could even take my 
future daughter-in-law back to Cedar Hill in the 
motor-car with us, and keep her there.” 

“That would be a very good plan, indeed,” said 
Beaumont Temple, gravely. “Pender will under- 
stand, I am sure, that the child wants a woman’s 
aid and counsel just now — if it’s put to him with 
care.” And, for just an instant, Mr. Blake’s face 
wore a little grim smile, while he said: 

“I’ll put it. Trust me! And I’ll keep her under 
my eye.” 


33b 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


A gardener’s boy was passing the veranda, and 
Temple asked him to send his trap around. 

“I must be off,” he said. “ Perhaps we’ll drive 
over to Cedar Hill this evening, De Coucy and I, 
for a general jollification. Tell Mrs. Faring to ex- 
pect us.” The two men shook hands very heartily, 
with mutual respect and liking. They had not said 
very much, but they understood each other perfectly, 
and they had managed to construct between them, 
in a singularly brief time, a very workman-like con- 
spiracy for the care and safety of Vittoria Fleming. 
So Temple turned away, found Raoul de Coucy at 
the other end of the porch, where he had withdrawn, 
and with an arm flung across the blind man’s 
shoulders, went down the steps and round the house 
toward the drive where his trap was waiting. 

Half-way he halted for a moment, and De Coucy 
asked, “ Why do we stop ?” 

“I see two young people down in the gardens be- 
side the goldfish-pool,” Beau Temple said. “They 
look very happy. They don’t know they are being 
watched, but they wouldn’t care if they did know it. 
One of them has her head on the other’s shoulder. 
Ah ! now they’re walking on, down under the arbor. 
They’re going to the walled garden. Nobody can 
see them there.” 

The Frenchman drew a little sigh. 

“Ah, si jeunesse savait!” 

“ If it knew what ?” demanded Beaumont Temple. 

“What it costs,” said Raoul de Coucy. “If youth 

337 


% 


BIANCA’S DAUGHTER 


knew what it costs! I was thinking of how much 
pain there has gone into the making of that hap- 
piness down yonder.” 

A brave and gallant gentleman squared his shoul- 
ders and reared his head. 

“It’s worth it,” said he. 


THE END 


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